20/12/06 - Independent sector performance: new web service

The Healthcare Commission (HC) has launched a new web service that provides information about performance in independent acute hospitals, mental health units and independent sector treatment centres. Each independent sector provider is assessed against 32 core standards and a range of service-specific standards. These standards are not the same as the ones that apply to the NHS but they do cover broadly similar issues. In October, the HC published its annual State of Healthcare Report, which for the first time gave an overall national picture of performance in the independent sector against core minimum standards. The new web service contains the details of how individual independent providers faired against each of those standards, at the time of inspection. There are 21 independent sector treatment centres and inspections have been completed at 11 of them.
(HC - press release) [BBC news item]