Five priorities for improvement are a feature of Waikato District Health Board's fourth annual Quality Account published recently.

The DHB's quality champions says in the report it demonstrates an ongoing commitment to the delivery of safe, high quality healthcare.

Waikato DHB Quality Champions, from left: Jan Adams, Tom Watson, Sue Hayward. Photo: Supplied

The quality champions includes former chief operating officer Jan Adams, director of nursing and midwifery Sue Hayward and chief medical advisor Tom Watson.

'It [the report] outlines our areas to focus and improve on over the next year,” the group says.

'Ensuring every service user has a positive experience depends on the skills and commitment of our staff, guided by a strong focus at board level on all aspects that affect the quality of services we provide.”

The five priority areas for 2014-2015 are keeping patients safe during their care, reducing deaths from preventable conditions, and improving care around deteriorating patients.

The DHB will also focus on improving customer care and responsiveness to patient needs, plus improving processes around patient transitions and transfers from hospital.

Quality Accounts are annual reports to the public from providers of health and disability services about the quality of the services they provide.

They aim to enhance accountability to the public and engage the leaders of provider organisations in their quality improvement agenda.

These accounts should describe what an organisation is doing well and where improvements in service quality are required.

They also lay out what an organisation's plans for improvement are for the coming year and how they involve service users, staff and others in determining the priorities for improvement.

Quality Accounts were first introduced into the UK National Health Service in 2009 and became a reporting requirement for all NHS Trusts in 2010.

Back then there were six priority areas: reduce medication errors, reduce patient falls, ensure clinical audit is carried out in every clinical unit, set up a mortality committee, improve hand hygiene, and implement a safe patient care programme.