From: bmj.com, March, 2004

A recent editorial report on BMJ.com cites that hospitals in England and Wales have not done enough to improve the quality of patient care. The quality of service a patient receives still depends too much on where a patient lives, according to a report by the Commission for Health Improvement (CHI).

Says Jocelyn Cornwell, CHI’s acting chief executive, “Significant improvements have been made in hospital trusts in the four years since CHI began reviewing the services they provide…” But, Dr. Cornwell adds, “Not enough is being done to ensure patients have privacy and are treated with dignity, and some services are of an unacceptable quality.”

Over 300 clinical governance reviews were conducted by CHI since December 2000, and the recent report drew on these reviews in making its conclusions.