Working with Health Check

The document "Criteria for Assessing Core Standards" published by the Commission in 2005 makes a host of references to the National Patient and Staff Surveys. There are 21 separate references to the staff survey and 7 references to the Inpatient survey, with others to the OPD, A&E, Paediatrics, and CHD patient surveys.

Health Check will cover all services directly provided by a Trust; and in the case of PCTs, all the services commissioned or contracted out by a PCT.

New and additional Developmental Standards will also be used by the Commission to drive up performance. These are due to be published shortly and are likely to contain references to issues on which many Trusts score close to the mean but where major service improvements could be encouraged: examples might be on the provision of information to patients, and the proportion of staff having Personal Development Reviews.

The data collected to measure standards in Health Check will be analysed with reference to the sample size and the distribution of responses. The Commission will also use statistical process control in order to look at trends over time.