The Commission for Health Improvement and children's health

Abstract 

The Commission for Health Improvement (CHI) monitors the quality of clinical care across the National Health Service (NHS). It collaborates with the NHS and external professional, statutory and voluntary bodies including those with a specific remit for children. Whilst the CHI is accountable to the Government, it has statutory powers and operates independently.

The CHI's work includes: selecting children's clinical teams for clinical governance reviews, to test out implementation of clinical governance; working with seven other inspection agencies to establish how well children are safeguarded; collaborative work with the Department of Health in support of the development of the children's National Service Framework; and one investigation which has touched on child protection issues in primary care.

Whilst progress has been made over recent years in the delivery of children's services, it is clear from the evidence that the CHI is collecting that more needs to be done.

Keywords: Commission for Health Improvement, children's health, health policy, children's services, clinical governance

No full text is available. To read the body of this article, please view the PDF online.

• f1 Correspondence to: EF. Tel: +44 (0) 20 7448 9264; Fax: +44 (0) 20 7448 9391 E-mail: liz.fradd@chi.nhs.uk