NHS England has published a refreshed business plan, describing its role in delivering high quality care for all, now and for future generations.

Putting Patients First: the NHS England business plan for 2014/15 – 2016/17 describes everything NHS England does as an organisation, both as a direct commissioner and as a leader, partner and enabler of the NHS commissioning system. It describes a strong focus on maintaining and improving present NHS performance and looking to the future to secure a sustainable NHS.

This business plan builds on Everyone Counts: Planning for Patients 2014/15 to 2018/19, NHS England’s earlier planning guidance for the system, which was published in December 2013. Within the business plan long-term ambitions are described, medium-term objectives and the specific deliverables NHS England expects to achieve over the next year.

The business plan outlines how NHS England will work as an organisation and how it will work with others; setting out the key intentions it will carry out as part of its role to improve outcomes for patients and how it will measure the impact of this.

These are set out in ‘business areas’ – those pieces of work that must be focused on to have maximum benefit for patients, fulfil NHS England’s statutory obligations and help the NHS change for the future.

The business plan reaffirms NHS England’s commitment to improving quality of care, improving equality and reducing health inequalities and ensuring that patients and the public are continually involved in decisions about their care and about the future of the NHS.

Bill McCarthy, National Director for Policy for NHS England said: “This plan is all about better care for patients and better services for local communities. We have a particular priority in the coming year to tackle inequality, for example by working with people with mental health problems to improve the consistency and quality of the support and care available to them.”