The Commission for Health Improvement (CHI) was a non-departmental public body

Non-departmental public body

In the United Kingdom, a non-departmental public body —often referred to as a quango—is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office, Treasury, Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Executive to certain types of public bodies...

 sponsored by the Department of Health

Department of Health (United Kingdom)

The Department of Health is a department of the United Kingdom government with responsibility for government policy for health and social care matters and for the National Health Service in England along with a few elements of the same matters which are not otherwise devolved to the Scottish,...

 of the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 from 2001 until 2004, when its functions were subsumed by the Healthcare Commission

Healthcare Commission

The Healthcare Commission was a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department of Health of the United Kingdom. It was set up to promote and drive improvement in the quality of health care and public health in England and Wales...

.

CHI was established by the Health Act 1999. It was the first organisation ever to assess the clinical performance of National Health Service

National Health Service (England)

The National Health Service or NHS is the publicly funded healthcare system in England. It is both the largest and oldest single-payer healthcare system in the world. It is able to function in the way that it does because it is primarily funded through the general taxation system, similar to how...

 hospitals in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Its chair was Dame Deirdre Hine

Deirdre Hine

Dame Deirdre Joan Hine, née Curran DBE FFPH FRCP FLSW is a Welsh medical doctor. In 1984 she began her career as a public health physician in Wales. She was named Chair of the Commission for Health Improvement. Since January 2004 she has chaired the-Background:Hine was born to David Alban Curran...

, who was a former Chief Medical Officer for Wales; and its chief executive was Dr Peter Homa CBE, who went on to become chief executive of St George's Healthcare NHS Trust

St George's Healthcare NHS Trust

St George's Healthcare NHS Trust is based in Tooting in the London Borough of Wandsworth, and serves a population of 1.3 million across southwest London...

in November 2003.

CHI was abolished on 31 March 2004.

Functions

CHI's aim was to improve the quality of patient care:

• assessing every NHS organisation and making its findings public
• investigating when there is serious failure
• checking that the NHS is following national guidelines
• advising the NHS on best practice
• CHI will be independent, rigorous and fair in its work, highlighting best practice in the NHS and encouraging others to adopt it, while not flinching from saying clearly where urgent improvement is required

Its six operating principles were:

• the patients experience is at the heart of CHI's work
• CHI will be independent, rigorous and fair
• CHI's approach is developmental and will support the NHS to continuously improve
• CHI's work will be based on the best available evidence and focus on improvement
• CHI will be open and accessible
• CHI will apply the same standards of continuous improvement to itself that it expects of others