Final Report > Summary > Care of an appropriate standard > Generic standards for healthcare institutions

Generic standards for healthcare institutions

93 All hospitals must meet certain standards (generic standards). Those which do not should not be permitted to provide NHS services. Generic standards relate to such matters as the state of the buildings and of equipment, the quality of leadership and the trust's policies and procedures for ensuring that care is safe and of good quality.

94 Trusts must periodically undergo a process of validation and revalidation (akin to licensing), to ensure that they meet these standards. Revalidation would mean that the trust could continue to offer healthcare services. The Commission for Health Improvement would be responsible for the process of validation. In time the process of validation should be extended to discrete, identifiable services within a trust. A pilot project involving children's acute hospital services and paediatric cardiac surgery in particular should be carried out.

95 Information about performance in the NHS is the basic building block of any system of standards and quality. In the past, there have been great difficulties in collecting information. There has also been a separation between administrative and clinical systems which our Experts described as `wasteful and anachronistic'.

96 For the future the multiple methods and systems for collecting data must be reduced. Data must be collected as the by-product of clinical care.

97 At a national level, the monitoring of clinical performance should be brought together and co-ordinated by one body, an independent Office for Monitoring Healthcare Performance which would be part of the Commission for Health Improvement. It could also carry out a surveillance role.