Don't lose focus on quality and safety in the NHS, says MP

South Norfolk MP Richard Bacon has said there is a danger of the NHS losing its focus in the face of continual restructuring, as a new report warns primary care trusts not to let organisational changes in the NHS obstruct quality and safety in patient care.

Mr Bacon was speaking as the National Audit Office (NAO) published its report on the implementation of clinical governance in primary care.

Clinical governance is the framework which makes the NHS accountable for its services and which safeguards the highest standards of clinical care. The NAO report finds that, for clinical governance to deliver sustained benefits to patients, the NHS must ensure quality and safety remain at the heart of the health agenda in the face of major changes to the way primary care services are delivered to patients.

Mr Bacon, a member of the Commons public accounts committee, said today:

“The NHS is almost constantly being reformed and restructured, most recently by cutting the number of strategic health authorities from 28 to 10 and halving the number of primary care trusts from 303 to 152, as part of the government’s NHS reform agenda”.

“It would be only too easy for the NHS to lose focus.  Patient care and safety should come first and ministers must ensure that trusts do not lose sight of the importance of safety and quality in patient care, and that clinical governance does not suffer because of the near-constant reorganisation of primary care”.

11 January 2007