19 July 2002
Following the Spending Review announcement, the Treasury published details of the health department's new Public Service Agreements. These include a value-for-money target that requires the NHS to improve its cost efficiency and treat more patients.
It also includes a quality target. Overall, the NHS must achieve 'value for money' gains of at least 2% a year – half from reductions in unit costs and half from quality improvements. Though there is no detailed information about the quality target, reaction in the NHS to its introduction has been positive.
However, senior managers told Public Finance they were unsure how quality would be measured.
Stuart Marples, the Institute of Healthcare Management's chief executive, said: 'Quality improvements are to be welcomed but quality is always that much more difficult to measure than quantitative targets.'
The PSA also includes the new target of a three-month maximum waiting time for hospital treatment by 2008, and restates existing priorities, including reducing deaths from cancer and heart disease.
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