Date: 15/10/2009
NHS Lambeth has achieved ratings of 'good' in both categories of the Care Quality Commission's 2008/09 annual performance ratings for all NHS trusts in England, published today.
The performance ratings confirm NHS Lambeth's place amongst the top eight of 31 primary care trusts (PCTs) in London and the top 30 per cent across England as a whole.
And the strength of the NHS in Lambeth is confirmed as our local NHS foundation trusts (Guy's and St Thomas', King's and South London and Maudsley) also secured positive annual performance ratings.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and social care services provided by the NHS, local councils and private and voluntary organisations in England.
This is the fourth year that the annual assessment of the NHS has been undertaken in its current format. The assessment is based on the performance of NHS trusts between April 2008 and March 2009.
The CQC rates PCTs as excellent, good, fair or weak in two broad areas:
Commissioning healthcare services, measuring how well local services perform against a set of national standards, priorities and commitments.
Financial management, looking at how well we manage our resources.
In its review of the quality of commissioning, the CQC looks at performance in a range of areas including patient safety, patient focus, cleanliness, waiting times and how well trusts are doing to improve the health of their local population.
The CQC rates NHS Lambeth as 'good' for the quality of commissioning, although it recommends a small number of areas for improvement, such as increasing local take-up of routine immunisations.
In its review of the quality of financial management, the CQC again rates us as 'good', concluding that NHS Lambeth 'has sound and effective financial management arrangements'. This rating is based upon the Audit Commission's new Use of Resources (UoR) assessment in which NHS Lambeth featured as one of the top 11 PCTs nationwide. The UoR is a more rigorous and challenging assessment than that of 2007/08.
"We are pleased to achieve such a positive annual performance rating again," says NHS Lambeth chair, Caroline Hewitt.
"I'd like to thank everyone whose effort and commitment has contributed to this achievement our own staff, Lambeth's local dentists, family doctors, optometrists and pharmacists, our local community health services, hospitals and mental health service providers, the London Ambulance Service and Lambeth Council.
"Their expertise, hard work and dedication help give Lambeth residents some of the best health and social care services in England.
'"We know of course that there are always areas for improvement, and we will continue to work to address the areas highlighted in this report, striving at all times to improve the health and wellbeing of the communities we serve."
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