Vital Signs

Vital signs are an approach to planning and managing some of the most important areas of health services locally and nationally.

Vital signs have been developed by the Department of Health to help organisations like NHS Sheffield to set a framework to allow more decision making to take place locally.

The idea is that NHS Sheffield - and local health professionals - will be able to develop healthcare in the City to better meet the needs of local people.

Vital signs are split into three areas:

1. National requirements

These are things that NHS Sheffield ‘must do’. They cover targets like waiting times for cancer treatment and the number of MRSA infections.

These targets are set nationally and NHS Sheffield has to have plans in place to address these. These plans have to be approved by the Department of Health, who then use these to monitor and manage the performance of organisations like NHS Sheffield across the country.

2. National priorities to be delivered at local level

These are things that are important nationally and that NHS Sheffield ‘needs to have plans in place’ to address. They cover targets such as childhood obesity rates and avoidable deaths from heart disease and stroke.

These priorities acknowledge that local plans need to reflect local areas. Targets for these are agreed locally and have to be approved by the Strategic Health Authority for Yorkshire & the Humber.

3. Local actions

These are things that NHS Sheffield ‘chooses to do’. They cover specific local targets linked to areas such as mental health services and diabetes.

Targets and priorities for these are agreed locally with NHS Sheffield’s partners. The Department of Health is not expected to be involved in performance management of these areas.

The information below represents our internal view on last year's performance.