NHS Improvement

NHS Improvement (NHSI) is a non-departmental body in England, responsible for overseeing the National Health Service's foundation trusts and NHS trusts, as well as independent providers that provide NHS-funded care.
It supports providers to give patients consistently safe, high quality, compassionate care within local health systems that are financially sustainable. A previous body – also called NHS Improvement – was set up in April 2008 to drive clinical service improvement, but was merged into NHS Improving Quality in 2013 following the Health and Social Care Act reforms.
From 1 April 2016, NHS Improvement is the operational name for an organisation that brings together: Monitor, NHS Trust Development Authority, Patient Safety (from NHS England), National Reporting and Learning System, Advancing Change Team and Intensive Support Teams.
In 2018 it became clear that the organisation, while maintaining its statutory independence, was for practical reasons to be merged with NHS England, and seven "single integrated regional teams" would be jointly established.
Leadership.
Since 1 April 2019, NHS Improvement and NHS England work together as a single organisation in the management of England's National Health Service, which has had implications for the organisations' leadership.
NHS Improvement Board.
Baroness Dido Harding, former chief executive of telecommunications company TalkTalk, was appointed chair in October 2017.
Learning from Mistakes League.
In 2016, NHS Improvement published a league table of the 230 NHS trusts according to their openness and transparency. The 'Learning from Mistakes League' table classified trusts into four categories:
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust was placed first and East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust was at the bottom. Claire Murdoch, chief executive of Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, placed 125th, complained that the league had a “significant methodological flaw in terms of fairness” because it implied that there were significant differences between ranks 120 and 121, and because, she complained, the assessments were not carried out consistently and the large amount of information trusts reported monthly to the Care Quality Commission were not taken into account.
Pathology network.
In September 2017 a plan was produced to create 29 pathology networks across England in a bid to save £200 million. 1.12 billion tests are performed per year, at a cost of £2.2 billion.