Annual review 2011 A story of people doing extraordinary things

In 2011, the story of healthcare was one of turmoil and uncertainty. Financial constraints and changing needs and expectations meant that changes to the way healthcare was provided were unavoidable. But, in the face of heated debate around NHS reform, it’s all too easy to overlook the fundamental challenge: delivering safe and effective care and continuously improving.

In 2011 we had six strategic priorities that led our work:

• inspiring improvement through changing relationships between people and health services
• inspiring improvement through healthcare professionals
• inspiring improvement in patient safety
• inspiring improvement by organising for quality
• inspiring improvement through use of knowledge
• inspiring improvement through value for money.

In this annual review, we report our achievements against these strategic priorities. First, we provide a short overview of our work in 2011, followed by more detail about what we have been doing within each strategic priority.