I have a vision where, in four years' time, when a patient is sent by a GP for a hospital appointment, they will know that an independent assessment has been made of that hospital and that the report is available to the public.
For hospitals in Chesterfield, Southampton and Sunderland, that vision is a now a reality.
Today, the commission for health improvement publishes the reports of its reviews of those hospitals - the beginning of a four-year programme of reviews that will cover every hospital, health authority, primary care trust and NHS trust in England and Wales.
The reports look at the issues that affect the quality of care patients receive, asking key questions. Are staff up-to-date with the latest clinical developments? Are junior staff properly supervised? Do the hospitals know how well they treat patients - and are they comparing themselves with similar hospitals? Do patients feel fully informed about their treatment?
These may seem obvious issues, but it is only recently that the NHS has had a legal duty to guarantee the quality of care it provides. For a long time, trust boards concentrated on how much treatment they were providing and what it was costing, with an assumption that quality was being looked after.
The three hospitals we report on today are well run; they all have areas that demonstrate very good practice in the health service; and they all have aspects that need improvement. In writing the reports, we have tried to present a picture of the hospitals that their local communities and staff would recognise.
Unsurprisingly, these pictures are a blend of strength and areas for improvement. My hope is that, in conveying our reports to local communities, local news and broadcast journalists will reflect that balance.
Each of the hospitals we report on today has produced a comprehensive action plan to address the issues the report raises. These action plans are very important. They give local people a way of being sure that the hospitals have taken our reports seriously and are doing something about them.
But it should not only be the staff of those hospitals and their communities who are interested in today's reports.
I hope that people everywhere will read them and use them to ask questions about their local health services and what they are doing to improve the quality of care they offer to patients. I also hope that health service staff across the country use them to help assess their own care of patients.
The commission has set out a bold aim - to bring about demonstrable improvement in patient care in the NHS. Our first three reports represent a major force for that improvement.
•: Peter Homa is chief executive of the commission for health improvement
