NHS Improvement (NHSI) was a non-departmental body in England, responsible for overseeing the National Health Service's foundation trusts and NHS trusts, as well as independent providers that provide NHS-funded care. It supported providers to give patients consistently safe, high quality, compassionate care within local health systems that are financially sustainable.
 | |
| Non-departmental public body overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1 April 2016 (2016-04-01) |
| Dissolved | 30 June 2022 (2022-06-30) |
| Superseding agency | |
| Jurisdiction | England |
| Headquarters | Wellington House, 133-155 Waterloo Road, London |
| Non-departmental public body executives |
|
| Parent department | Department of Health and Social Care |
| Website | improvement |
A previous body – also called NHS Improvement – was set up in April 2008 to drive clinical service improvement,[1] but was merged into NHS Improving Quality in 2013[2] following the Health and Social Care Act reforms.
From 1 April 2016, NHS Improvement was the operational name for an organisation that brought together Monitor, NHS Trust Development Authority, Patient Safety (from NHS England), National Reporting and Learning System, Advancing Change Team and Intensive Support Teams.
In 2018 it became clear that the organisation, while maintaining its statutory independence, was for practical reasons to be merged with NHS England, and seven "single integrated regional teams" would be jointly established.[3] In February 2021, the government confirmed its intention to merge NHS Improvement into NHS England in its Integration and innovation white paper.[4] The merger took place on 1 July 2022, at which point NHS Improvement ceased to exist, with its two legal entities, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority, being abolished.[citation needed]
From 1 April 2019, NHS Improvement and NHS England worked together as a single organisation in the management of England's National Health Service, which had implications for the organisations' leadership.[5]
In 2021, the NHS Executive Group were:[6]
In 2021, the NHS Improvement Board were:[7]
In 2016, NHS Improvement published a league table of the 230 NHS trusts according to their openness and transparency. The 'Learning from Mistakes League' table classified trusts into four categories:
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust was placed first and East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust was at the bottom.[8] Claire Murdoch, chief executive of Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, placed 125th, complained that the league had a “significant methodological flaw in terms of fairness” because it implied that there were significant differences between ranks 120 and 121, and because, she complained, the assessments were not carried out consistently and the large amount of information trusts reported monthly to the Care Quality Commission were not taken into account.[9]
In September 2017 a plan was produced to create 29 pathology networks across England in a bid to save £200 million. 1.12 billion tests are performed per year, at a cost of £2.2 billion.[10]