The Health Foundation has launched a new website that provides an independent, accurate and up-to-date picture of how well the NHS is performing.
The Quest for Quality and Improved Performance (QQUIP) website brings together data from a wide range of sources to reveal national and international trends on diseases and quality of care. It also collates evidence on the impact of various interventions designed to improve the quality of healthcare internationally.
The website is home to over 150 charts which provide easily accessible, at-a-glance data on priority areas such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and mental health. It collects, analyses and updates data from a wide range of already published and publicly available sources such as OECD Health Data, the Department of Health, the Healthcare Commission, medical Royal College databases and clinical publications.
“Without good information about the quality of healthcare, sensible decisions cannot be made about where and how to improve," QQUIP’s principal researcher, Professor Sheila Leatherman of The University of North Carolina and the London School of Economics said. “The government and policy makers need these kinds of data to address quality deficiencies, to make wise decisions about resource allocation and to refine the reform strategy.
“QQUIP is already bringing to light interesting trends and allows us to compare NHS performance internationally. We can see that improvements are needed in conditions which affect the health and well-being of many people such as stroke and diabetes. Stroke-related death rates are still too high in the UK and patients who have had a stroke say they want to be more involved in their care and treatment decisions."
The QQUIP website is one component of the broader £2.5 million QQUIP research initiative. The research team is conducting in-depth reviews of all the latest evidence on the extent to which interventions such as incentives, regulation, patient involvement and IT improve the quality of care provided. They are also examining the value for money the NHS provides in order to inform the future development of healthcare policy.
For more information, visit the QQUIP website.