The Commission for Health Improvement says the NHS is getting better.

However, in a new report it also warns that progress has not been made in some areas.

And it also warns that pressure for reform may be counter-productive.

Dame Deirdre Hine, CHI chairman, told the BBC about the report's conclusions.

We found that there were tremendous advances in a whole lot of areas in the NHS.

For instance, people are getting treated faster, they are getting treated with very up-to-date methods of treatment and in particular they are being given a lot more information about their condition, the diagnosis, and the options are open to them for treatment.

Basically, they are being treated very much more as individuals than they were some years ago.

I think that it's very difficult to generalise about that.

Many people, if you ask them, say that they are very satisfied with their treatment.

But we are also very conscious of some areas where the treatment is not improving as fast as we would like it.

I think mental health services, where people are still being treated sometimes in less than desirable environments.

Part of the problem is that there is a shortage of consultant psychiatrists, for instance.

Cancer services is another area. There have been tremendous improvements in the treatment of cancer.

But there are shortages of some skilled staff, like cancer nurses.

And this makes it difficult for the service to treat people to the very high standard of quality that we expect of them.

Absolutely. Let's focus on control of infection in hospitals.

This can be tackled if a hospital has a very clear policy on control of infection, which is backed by the board and implemented by a strong strong team of doctors and nurses.

It also requires that frontline staff are reminded all the time of the very simple precautions that need to be taken to avoid spreading infection from patient to patient or staff to patients or patients to staff.

I won't say it's easy because it requires a lot of attention and continuous monitoring - but it doesn't require a lot of money.

Leadership. One of our findings is that where there is really strong leadership, both clinical and management leadership, working together then you get the fastest and the best improvements.