Quality accounts are a key mechanism through which health care organisations can demonstrate their focus on improving the quality of their service. The government has recently undertaken an evaluation of the 2009/10 quality accounts and set out their expectations for 2010/11.
The King’s Fund undertook an independent analysis of a sample of quality accounts produced by a range of providers – acute trusts, mental health trusts, independent providers. The analysis focused on three particular aspects of the quality accounts:
This paper includes examples from 2009/10 quality accounts that show how the content and the presentation of information can vary. Based on these examples, we make recommendations for providers when they are developing and writing a quality account.