A health authority has been rated 'good' after strengthening its leadership and making improvements for patients in urgent care.

The rating by NHS England represents a substantial improvement for Great Yarmouth and Waveney Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), which was ranked as 'inadequate' following last year's assessment.

NHS England noted several areas of good practice at the CCG in its evaluation, including retaining a focus on improving outcomes for patients, continuing to keep patients at the heart of decision-making and strengthening leadership, which has led to a variety of improvements for patients in cancer and urgent care.

It also said the CCG was making good progress to improve finances, receiving positive feedback from stakeholder organisations and making improvements to primary care.

Chief officer Melanie Craig said: 'This is fantastic news for our CCG, and a great credit to our team.

'They have worked incredibly hard over the past year to drive through improvements to our performance for the benefit of local people, and I am delighted that those efforts have been reflected in this year's rating.

'I was especially pleased that NHS England identified so many areas of positive practice, especially our focus on patient outcomes and making sure we involve our patients and communities in the decisions we make when commissioning care. We will build on these strong foundations over the coming year so that we can continue to ensure the services we commission truly meet the needs of local residents.

'We will also focus on those areas where NHS England noted that improvements could still be made, which include continued delivery of our improvement plan and working closely with others within the Sustainability and Transformation Partnership. We will not become complacent, and will also be working hard to continue to improve diabetes and dementia services, as well as mental health performance.'

Dr Liam Stevens, interim chairman of the CCG, added: 'This assessment represents a significant turnaround in the CCG's performance, and one of which all our staff can be proud. It is also great news for our patients as it shows we are continuing to build towards our vision of delivering better health, better care and better value.'