In June 2008 after a year-long review process led by Lord Ara Darzi, the publication 'High Quality Care for All' was launched.  This set the vision for 'quality' to be at the heart of everything the NHS does.

A key commitment made in the publication was that each Strategic Health Authority would:

"Establish a formal Quality Observatory, building on existing analytical arrangements, to enable localbenchmarking, development of metrics and identifications of opportunities to help frontline staff innovate and improve the services they offer".

All level of health system, from individuals to clinical teams, need to work towards making quality of care the guiding principle of the NHS. Nationally, a quality framework has been extablished to enable organisations and teams to deliver high quality care and Quality Observatories to form part of this.