Recent research commissioned by the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI), in conjunction with the Health Service Journal and Atos Consulting shows that the government’s rhetoric on quality improvement in the NHS is not matched by the reality.
From an extensive survey carried out on NHS staff, findings show staff are sceptical about quality initiatives, with three quarters of respondents saying that the government’s Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) programme has had no real impact on quality, and 42% said it had a negative impact. Over half of those interviewed said the Health Bill fails to reflect any aspect of quality.
The lack of quality leadership, staff training, and the failure to incorporate quality measures in staff objectives or performance reviews, are also revealed to be key barriers to quality. Have a look at the full report.
As quality improvement is such a high profile and prominent area within healthcare, implementing an organisation wide approach to effectively managing and monitoring it, whilst conveying the importance of quality to staff, is imperative.
Deploying a Quality Management System (QMS) to help you manage all your quality activities is an efficient way of helping to ensure important quality regulations and standards are met and maintained.
Some key findings from the CQI research include:
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Financial outcomes and operational effectiveness are the elements of quality taking precedence in the QIPP agenda
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An effective QMS could help you with both by saving you time and money, enabling you to focus on providing more patient focused services.
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The largest barrier to quality is the lack of time among influential people to drive a successful quality improvement programme
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A good QMS can help you save time on all your quality activities, and help to facilitate an organisation wide quality improvement programme from the top down.
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Providers have the biggest impact on quality in the NHS
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A cost efficient, user friendly QMS can help you identify any areas of quality improvement, and help you implement improvements that require to be made.
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More than a third of managers do not receive quality training
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A QMS can help all manage staff training, allowing you to monitor staff competencies and identify areas where training may be required.
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Let us know what you think. What are your opinions of NHS quality initiatives? Are they deployed effectively in your hospital, and if so, how?