ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the impact of the major reforms of the New Labour (1997-2010) and Conservative-Liberal Democrat (2010-) Governments on quality and safety of care delivered in the English National Health Service (NHS). We first briefly outline the position before 1997, before setting out the main reforms of the Labour and Coalition Governments. We then briefly set out the current quality and safety landscape, linking-where possible-changes in quality and safety with recent reforms, and discuss current quality and safety issues. We find that despite scandals such as “Mid Staffordshire,” most of the evidence points to improvements in quality and safety over time. However, there is an element of “Groundhog Day” as “quality” is periodically rediscovered as a major theme in the NHS and recommendations of previous inquiries being recycled after highprofile and tragic events. At times the NHS appears to be an organization without a memory. “Sorry” may be the hardest word, but learning and implementation appear to be the hardest activities.
