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Home > About Newcastle Hospitals > Corporate information > Reports and publications > Quality accounts

Quality accounts

Our quality account priorities focus on specific areas of improvement relating to patient safety, clinical effectiveness, and patient experience. Published annually, they outline our commitment and performance in relation to delivering care of the highest quality.

Quality accounts are both retrospective and forward looking as they look back on the previous year’s data, explaining our outcomes and, crucially, look forward to define our priorities for the next year and how we plan to achieve these.

Specific areas of focus for improvement in 2026/2027.

Continue to increase incident reporting, reducing the proportion of incidents resulting in serious harm and including an in-year reduction in never events related to invasive procedures.

We will also focus on promoting patient safety in areas where there is a significant risk of harm associated with invasive procedures, aiming to reduce the number of related Never Events.

Safer and more effective medicines use.

Medicines are the most widely used intervention in healthcare and medication errors, and adverse drug reactions are common. This can lead to poor patient outcomes, and negatively impact families, staff and organisations.

Reduction in lung cancer waiting times.

We aim to significantly improve the early stages of the lung cancer pathway, with a focus on faster and more efficient diagnostics.

Reducing healthcare associated infection and improving antimicrobial stewardship.

There is a significant risk from the impact of antimicrobial resistance. It is imperative that we focus on appropriate prescribing and use antimicrobials only when there is an infection for which they are the most appropriate treatment. We aim to reduce patient harm associated with healthcare infections by achieving national targets.

Improve timescales to respond to complaints.

Deliver a timely, reliable, transparent and learning focused complaints process.

Reduce ‘did not attend/was not brought’ appointments by 3%, measured using the index of multiple deprivation 1& 2 & global majority.

Reduce missed appointment numbers, improve maternity access, and continuity of care, alongside improved outcomes for mothers and babies within these groups.

Increase maternal vaccination rates, including flu, whooping cough and respiratory syncytial virus, by 10% for women who require an interpretation service.

Increase vaccination uptake, reducing health inequalities and improving maternal and population health outcomes.

Quality Account – 2024 to 2025 (3.16MB PDF) Quality Account Easy Read – 2024 to 2025 (1.07MB PDF)

Previous quality accounts

Quality Account – 2023 to 2024 (5.90MB PDF) Quality Account Easy Read – 2023 to 2024 (665.85kB PDF)