Standards for Better Health are a set of standards that the 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...

 in England must meet. The standards were set out 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...

 in a document of the same name published in 2004. NHS trust

NHS Trust

A National Health Service trust provides services on behalf of the National Health Service in England and NHS Wales.The trusts are not trusts in the legal sense but are in effect public sector corporations. Each trust is headed by a board consisting of executive and non-executive directors, and is...

s must declare their level of compliance with these standards to 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...

 annually as part of the Commission's Annual Health Check. The standards will be replaced from 2009/10 by registration criteria to be established by the Department of Health and Care Quality Commission

Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission is a non-departmental public body of the United Kingdom government established in 2009 to regulate and inspect health and social care services in England. This includes services provided by the NHS, local authorities, private companies and voluntary organisations -...

, which will take over from the Healthcare Commission on 1 April 2009.

Domains

The standards are listed under seven headings or 'domains', three of which focus on the 'patient experience':

1. Safety
   Patient safety
   Patient safety is a new healthcare discipline that emphasizes the reporting, analysis, and prevention of medical error that often leads to adverse healthcare events. The frequency and magnitude of avoidable adverse patient events was not well known until the 1990s, when multiple countries reported...
   
   
2. Clinical and cost effectiveness
3. Governance (both clinical governance
   Clinical governance
   Clinical governance is the term used to describe a systematic approach to maintaining and improving the quality of patient care within a health system. The term became widely used in health care following the Bristol heart scandal in 1995, during which anaesthetist Dr Stephen Bolsin exposed the...
   
    and corporate governance
   Corporate governance
   Corporate governance is a number of processes, customs, policies, laws, and institutions which have impact on the way a company is controlled...
   
   )
4. Patient focus
5. Accessible and responsive care
6. Care environment and amenities
7. Public health
   Public health
   Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...
   
   

Standards

The standards are divided into 24 core and 13 developmental standards. Compliance with the core standards has always been mandatory but the approach taken by the Department of Health and Healthcare Commission with respect to the developmental standards has varied.