High quality care for all NHS Next Stage Review - Antibiotic Action

High Quality Care For All – NHS Next Stage Review Final Report5746. We also intend to foster AcademicHealth Science Centres (AHSCs)to bring together a small numberof health and academic partnersto focus on world-class research,teaching and patient care. Theirpurpose is to take new discoveriesand promote their application inthe NHS and across the world.Centres such as these will be wherebreakthroughs are made and thenpassed directly on to patients onthe ward. There is no pre-definednumber, although we have heardinterest expressed by five to 10organisations already.47.The best and most successful AHSCswill have the concentration ofexpertise and excellence that enablesthem to compete internationally.For these organisations, the peerset will not be simply this country orour European neighbours. They willcompete globally with establishedcentres such as those in the UnitedStates, Canada, Singapore, Swedenand the Netherlands.48. We will define the criteria forbecoming an Academic HealthScience Centre (AHSC). In recognitionof the global dimension, we willestablish an international panel ofexperts to award this status. Thiswill objectively determine whetherorganisations that aspire to this statushave the appropriate concentrationof expertise and excellence to be ableto compete internationally. Thosewho have self-designated AHSCstatus will be subject to review bythe international panel of experts.49. The potential of AHSCs to deliverresearch excellence and improvepatient care and professionaleducation is tremendous. Cleargovernance arrangements withacademe, which ensure this worksfor both patients and the NHS, willbe very important. A number ofgovernance models have alreadyemerged to suit local circumstances;that is preferable to the impositionof a single model. Our approach willtherefore be broadly permissive; weare open to proposals for differentforms of governance on a case-bycasebasis, including, potentially,changing legislation where thiswould help an AHSC to achievethe optimal governance model tosupport its success. We will workwith interested organisations todevelop these over the next year.Conclusion50. If everyone, from the hospital ChiefExecutive to the GP receptionist isprimarily focussed on achieving highquality care for patients, we will havesucceeded. Central initiatives, fromfostering innovation to encouragingquality reporting can play their part.However, ultimately if high qualitycare is to become more than an ideal,we need to free the local NHS toconcentrate on quality.