NHS 'to start new era of care'

A 'new era' of focusing on the outcomes of patient care rather than targets will begin in the NHS from today, the Department of Health has claimed.

The publication of the first NHS Outcomes Framework will see the organisation move away from meeting centrally-driven targets and towards improving the issues that patients care the most about.

Through the framework, which will be refined each year, the NHS will focus its efforts on five key areas - preventing patients from dying prematurely, improving quality of life for those with long-term conditions, boosting recovery rates, providing a positive experience of care and offering a safe environment for treatment.

Health secretary Andrew Lansley commented: 'Our ambition is to achieve health outcomes at least as good as any in the world. To achieve this, we need to focus on outcomes and their robust, continuing measurement.'

He added that the NHS Outcomes Framework will allow patients to see how the service is making progress in improving the care it offers and reducing inequalities in provision.

Last week, the government announced that GBP 89 billion in funding will be given directly to primary care trusts so they can improve frontline services.