Putting our best foot forward 10/11/2014

Putting our best foot forward Just last month, the NHS recently published its five-year plan designed to ensure patients receive the care they deserve. Called ‘The Five Year Forward View’, it is a collaboration between six leading NHS groups: the Care Quality Commission; Monitor; Health Education England; the NHS Trust Development Authority; Public Health England; and NHS England. (Download the report at http://bit.ly/1rr78ja) Speaking about the plan, David Behan, Chief Executive of the Care Quality Commission, commented: ‘Our inspections are continuing to tell us that there is too much variation in the quality and safety of health and adult social care. This is why we support “The Five Year Forward View” for the NHS, which sets out how the service needs to evolve, so that the needs of patients can be met and so that we can close the care gap. ‘As the regulator of health and social care, our role is to use our inspections and what people tell us, to identify what is working well and why, and what does not work. We want this to drive improvement, with providers learning from the services that we rate as good and outstanding.’ One aspect of the report that is close our hearts at DBG is achieving a truly patient-focused, integrated health system. We want to help our GP members identify what works well (and what doesn’t) not only to achieve that CQC tick in the box but also to provide outstanding results that patients will recognise and appreciate. We have already helped thousands of GP practices do just that and would be delighted to advise others, too, so please don’t hesitate to get in contact with us.