NHS to have League Tables

Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced a comprehensive set of reforms aimed at improving the performance of the NHS in England. Key aims are:

1. Transparency and Accountability: Hospitals will be ranked in league tables based on indicators such as care delivery and financial performance. This will allow patients to see how well their local hospitals are performing and ensure that underperforming hospitals are identified and addressed. 
2. Improving Leadership: A new college will be established to train and develop excellent NHS leaders. Additionally, senior leaders will be denied pay rises if key improvements are not made, and a new pay framework for chief executives will be introduced to clamp down on poor performance while rewarding success.
3. Support for Struggling Trusts: "Turnaround teams" will be sent into struggling Trusts to help them improve. The aim is to ensure that poor-performing hospitals do not remain at the bottom of the league tables indefinitely.
4. Incentives for Top Performers: Top-performing hospitals will be given more freedom over spending, including greater control over capital investments. This is intended to encourage hospitals to run budget surpluses and invest in new equipment, technology, or modernising their buildings.
5. Reducing Reliance on Agency Staffing: The reforms aim to reduce the use of expensive agency staffing, which has been a significant cost burden for the NHS. By addressing this issue, the NHS hopes to cut costs and improve staffing stability.
6. Enhanced Oversight: The NHS Oversight Framework will be updated to ensure that performance is properly scrutinised. Government and NHS England will conduct "deep dives" into poorly performing Trusts to identify and resolve the most pressing issues.
7. Cutting Waiting Times: The reforms aim to cut waiting times and improve the overall patient experience. This includes ensuring that Trusts use their funding wisely to enhance services and reduce delays.

We hope that the reforms proposed improve the culture around learning from mistakes within the NHS, which remains a much-underused powerhouse of potential improvement and justice for patients, despite a decade of the statutory duty of candour.