Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of Quality Improvement reports in driving measurable improvements in patient care outcomes across NHS trusts.

A Quality Account is a report of the quality of services offered by a National Health Service healthcare provider. They are published annually and are an important way for local NHS services to demonstrate the effectiveness of, and show improvements in, the services they deliver.

There are several measures in place for holding NHS trusts, foundation trusts, and integrated care boards (ICBs) to account for delivery, and for supporting improvement in operational performance, quality, and patient outcomes.

NHS England oversees NHS trusts, foundation trusts, and ICBs through the NHS Oversight Framework, and has proposed updates to this in the draft NHS Performance Assessment Framework, which was published in March 2025. NHS England will shortly consult upon the revised approach, which includes quality metrics that judge how effectively organisations are delivering high quality, safe care. NHS England plans to publish a final framework by July of this year.

In addition, within their joint forward plans, ICBs are required to set out quality objectives that reflect system intelligence, with clearly aligned metrics on processes and outcomes to evidence ongoing sustainable and equitable improvement.