Quality improvement

This section introduces the quality improvement theme. Resources to support this theme are:

Introduction

All health care systems strive to provide safe and good quality health care; improve patient experience, tackle inefficiencies and update practice in the light of evidence from research. The health departments of each of the four countries in the UK have developed standards for the NHS in order to monitor these aspects of delivery. These set out common requirements for services and staff and promote continuous quality improvement.

The focus on quality has been heightened by recent initiatives. In England Lord Darzi’s NHS Next Stage Review report puts “quality at the heart of everything we do” (Department of Health 2008, p.47), with the emphasis on care that is personal, effective and safe. Recommendations for realising this are made building on current quality improvement activities and achievements and developing new approaches. The NHS Scotland Quality Strategy similarly emphasises the provision of “high-quality, person-centred, clinically effective and safe health care services” (Scottish Government 2009, p.4) highlighting how these act as the key drivers for quality improvement. The Strategy describes the priority areas for action and the improvement interventions required.

As a result the quality agenda is being moved forward in different ways. New approaches to quality improvement processes and ways of measuring quality of care and using this information to improve performance are currently being developed and implemented - for example developments around quality indicators.

The strategy and standard documents for each UK country can be found in the four country perspectives section of this Clinical governance resource which can be accessed from Clinical governance.

References

The items in this reference list are available online. They were last accessed on 2 February 2010. They are in PDF format - see how to access PDF files.

Department of Health (2008) High quality care for all: NHS Next Stage Review final report. London: The Department.

Scottish Government (2009) The Healthcare Quality Strategy for Scotland: draft strategy document (October 2009) (PDF 113.24KB). Edinburgh: Scottish Government.