Annual Health Check
Annual Health Check
A mechanism for assessing the performance of NHS providers, which rates the quality of care provided by an NHS organisation. Annual health checks (AHCs) examine a much broader range of issues than the targets used previously under the Star Rating System (which was abandoned in 2006), and tries to make better use of the data, opinions and expertise provided by the assessor, to focus on measuring what matters to people who use and provide healthcare services.AHCs are based in part on the views of patients and users of services, as well as robust data sources for the arm’s-length monitoring of clinical performance, reducing the stringent focus on target setting by Whitehall (central Government). The AHCs are also meant to help patients make better-informed decisions about their care, promote information sharing and provide clearer expectations on standards of performance. AHCs grade NHS organisations on quality of services and use of resources into 4 levels: Weak; fair, if the trust had met the clinical targets used in the star rating system; good; and excellent, if the organisation could prove they had processes in place to improve their services.