The Healthcare Commission has launched its report to Parliament on the state of healthcare in England and Wales

Monday 10 December 2007Comment on this article Permlink

Healthcare Commission

Healthcare services in England provide care for 50.7 million people.

During 2006/2007, people in England visited their GP practice almost 300 million times, made around 19 million visits to accident and emergency (A&E) departments and made over five million calls to NHS Direct.

They attended nearly 1.2 million appointments with independent inpatient, day case and surgical outpatient services and made over three million visits to independent outpatient services.

Key findings from the 2007 State of Healthcare Report include:

  1. The health of the population is improving with significant increases in life expectancy, but there are major disparities around the country, particularly in poorer areas where there are often fewer GPs
  2. Patients are positive about hospital services overall but some organisations perform poorly. Beneath the headline figures there are concerns about aspects of care such as dignity and privacy.
  3. There have been dramatic improvements in waiting times but there are hidden waits for some services, which are not measured and therefore difficult to address
  4. NHS trusts are performing better overall on quality of services, but the performance of primary care trusts (PCTs) has declined, with many not getting to grips with the needs of their communities so as to provide services to match
  5. There is progress towards a stronger culture of safety and grounds for cautious optimism in reducing healthcare-associated infection. But trust boards need to show stronger leadership
  6. New figures show that more independent healthcare providers meet core standards, mirroring a similar trend among NHS trusts. But there are concerns about compliance among independent providers of mental healthcare
  7. The NHS often fails to meet the needs of children and young people and there are concerns about other groups requiring specialist care, such as people with mental health problems and with learning difficulties
  8. There have been dramatic improvements in responding to the big killers – cancer, circulatory and respiratory disease – but five-year survival rates for cancer, and mortality rates for respiratory disease, are worse than in other comparable countries.

State of Healthcare 2007 Report.

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