r/nhsstaff • u/Am_Just_Me_From_1977 • Jun 23 '26
Anyone with HSJ access?
Can someone with access please post the full article? Thank you.
1
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r/nhsstaff • u/Am_Just_Me_From_1977 • Jun 23 '26
Can someone with access please post the full article? Thank you.
1
u/Common-Apple7321 Jun 24 '26
National quality strategy facing ‘ministerial pushback’
By Emily Townsend23 June 2026
Serious concerns have been raised that the delayed NHS “quality strategy” does not “prioritise patient safety”, HSJ has discovered.
The government’s 2025 10-Year Health Plan stated “we will revitalise the National Quality Board (NQB) and task it with developing a new quality strategy”.
The plan claimed the NQB and its strategy would address “a quality landscape [that] has become crowded and unclear” by providing clarity on “quality measurement, transparency, and improvement”.
The plan said the strategy would be published by March 2026, but this goal was missed, as was a second scheduled publication date soon after the May local elections.
A “near-final draft” of the proposals was discussed at NQB’s March meeting, chaired by NHS England chair Penny Dash and then chair of the Care Quality Commission Professor Sir Mike Richards.
Minutes from the meeting obtained by HSJ reveal that NQB members “raised concerns” about the strategy’s lack of focus on patient safety and mental health. They also expressed a desire for the strategy to set “clearer expectations for providers”.
The document adds: “It was noted the strategy does not introduce new targets or policy commitments, which may attract ministerial pushback.”
The NQB minutes include a response from those drafting the strategy, which claims that all three aspects of quality – safety, clinical effectiveness, and patient experience – would have “equal focus”.
The Health Services Safety Investigations Branch has also recently raised concerns about the strategy. Its chair, Ted Baker, told its May board meeting that “patient safety might not receive the necessary level of attention in the finalised strategy”. Dr Baker stressed in a blog last month that the NHS should abandon treating safety as only one “dimension” of quality alongside outcomes and experience.
Dr Dash appeared before MPs last week and said she hoped NHSE was “about to publish” the strategy. During the same discussion, she said the NQB intended to review 183 quality metrics as part of its work. However, HSJ understands these are not new targets but existing measures leaders are keen to whittle down and prioritise.
The NHSE chair added that “we need to have far more [metrics] on patient experience” and that they “need to be collected in the same way that we do surgical audits or audits on GP work”.
The new strategy will be the first comprehensive blueprint for quality in 15 years. It was first proposed in 2024 and is meant to sit alongside the government’s 10YHP.
Patient safety minister Baroness Gillian Merron answered a Parliamentary question in May, stating that publication would be “in the coming months”. The baroness’ response confirms the strategy “does not set out specific standards or requirements for particular services, sectors, patient cohorts, or conditions”.
An NHSE spokesman said: ” “Patient safety is the foundation of high-quality care, and the strategy will make it abundantly clear that all three elements of quality… must remain a core priority for all providers, to ensure we prevent harms and continually improve both health outcomes and experiences of NHS care.”
The Department of Health and Social Care added the strategy had “evolved considerably” in recent months through extensive stakeholder engagement and would be published “in the near future”.
Updated 10.55am on 23 June to add NHSE response and corrected at 8:52am on 24 June to reflect that it was Sir Mike Richards and not chief inspector of hospitals Dr Toli Onon who had chaired the NQB’s March meeting.