Healthcare providers face a tough new set of performance measures under health minister Lord Darzi's plans to ensure quality is integral to the NHS.
Reforms including a quality framework for community services were revealed as part of the health minister's high profile review of the NHS, released on Monday.
Pharmacists will have to publish 'Quality Accounts' from April 2010, detailing safety, experiences and outcomes of services they provide, the review stated.
NHS stakeholders will also be charged with developing their own local performance measures.
Lord Darzi said: "Our goal is that every provider of NHS services should systematically measure, analyse and improve quality."
Practice-based commissioning (PBC) had failed to deliver the improvements in local NHS care that the government had intended, the review admitted.
Westminster pledged to "reinvigorate" the scheme. Incentives will ensure PBC extends beyond GPs to involve pharmacists and other clinicians, Lord Darzi said.
Doctors received a further blow with the review announcing the end of protected income payments for practices. No details of the future of pharmacy practice payments were given.
However, all NHS stakeholders could expect patients to have a far greater say over the future direction of NHS cash, the review ruled. The public will be asked to rate NHS services using patient reported outcome measures, Lord Darzi said. And patients suffering from chronic conditions could receive personalised health budgets to give them more control over the services they receive and where they access them from.
Lord Darzi said: "We have to keep up with the expectations of the public. This will mean allowing people to exercise choice and be partners in decisions about their own care."
Lord Darzi echoed the pharmacy white paper's pledge to give the profession a part in a national vascular screening programme to be rolled out in 2009. The government will publicise this through a national campaign.
