We have a proven track record in meeting quality targets, national standards and financial obligations, and our achievements can be demonstrated by the results shown in the Healthcare Commission's Annual Health Check. This is the national assessment system against which the performance of all healthcare organisations in England and Wales is rated annually.

The Healthcare Commission set high thresholds to achieve excellence and during 2006/07 the Newcastle Hospitals performed extremely well:

This rating assesses the quality of services we provide by considering standards and targets performance.  A full breakdown of the targets is included within the rating on the Annual Health Check website.

Our results put us up amongst the top performing Trusts in England.  This can be credited to the drive, capacity and acumen of all our staff who continually strive to deliver excellent care.  However, despite our achievement, we have an ethos that we can always do better and our clinical teams work hard to improve ways of working to provide an ever more efficient and effective service.

The Healthcare Commission (HCC) and the Audit Commission (through The Acute Hospital Portfolio) carry out a range of service reviews.   Each organisation participating in the reviews was given a score for each indicator, between 1 and 5 (scale may vary for particular indicators). These scores were then used to determine our overall score. 

To date we have achieved the following results:

 See the Healthcare Commission website for more information on how we performed.

Annual surveys are carried out involving both our patients and our staff to help us better understand where we are seen to be doing well and where we should be focusing our efforts to improve the experience for both patients and staff.

Patient Survey

The Healthcare Commission's annual NHS Patient Survey Programme is sent out to a number of inpatients to seek their views on how we perform in a range of specific areas:

•  Admission to hospital
• The hospital and ward
• Doctors
• Nurses
• Your care and treatment
• Pain
• Operations and procedures
• Leaving hospital

Overall, the findings of the latest inpatient survey for 2006/07 determined that our patients found the care and treatment provided in our hospitals was 'satisfactory' and we were amongst the top 20% performing Trusts in England.  However the results of this survey enables us to review those areas where there is room for improvement and make positive changes for our patients and their carers.

Visit the Healthcare Commission website to find out more about what they had to say.

Staff Survey

The annual staff survey is sent out to a randomly selected group of staff covering a range of key areas:

• Work/life balance
• Appraisal, training, learning and development
• Team working, supervision, communication and staff involvement
• Safety at work
• Staff attitudes

The latest staff survey carried out in 2006 showed that there had been some noticeable improvements from previous years, although there are some areas which would benefit from further improvement, in particular around team working, flexible working and reporting of errors, near misses and incidents.

The results enable us to recognise the commitment of our staff by developing and rewarding them appropriately, and focusing on making changes that our staff really want, helping them to continue to deliver the best quality service for our patients.