Standards for Better Health Declaration

As part of the annual health check  for 2009/2010, all NHS healthcare organisations were asked to  make a mid-year declaration up to 31 October 2009.  This year (2009/10) is a transitional year between regulatory systems and approaches and from January 2010 all healthcare organisation providers were  required to register against new regulations. These are the essential standards of quality and safety that will replace the core standards set out in Standards for Better Health.

All trusts who provide services made a ‘mid-year’ declaration’ for the period 1 April to 31 October 2009. The full assessment still covers a full twelve month period so there is a gap between the end of the declaration period (31 October 2009) and the end of the assessment year (31 March 2010). Because of this all healthcare organisations are required to inform the Care Quality Commission (CQC) if a significant lapse occurs in, or they have  insufficient assurance of compliance, for a core standard after 31 October 2009 and up to 31 March 2010.

During the first seven months of 2009, the Trust undertook a comprehensive, rigorous and systematic self-assessment of its assurances against the core Standards for Better Health and can confirm that compliance with all 44 standards has been achieved. In the 2008/09 submission the Trust declared compliance against 43 of the 44 standards and confirmed that compliance against standard - C7e: Healthcare organisations challenge discrimination, promote equality and respect human rights would be achieved by the end of July 2009. However compliance with this standard was achieved by the end of June 2009 ahead of plan. Therefore the Trust is currently compliant with all 44 standards.

The Trust remains focused on maintaining and improving the high quality of services it delivers and will continue to assure itself of compliance with all the core Standards for Better Health throughout the rest of 2009/10.