The Radiotherapy Department at one of the UK’s highest-performing NHS Trusts has implemented Q-Pulse in managing the safety and quality of their radiotherapy services.

In the UK, the report "Towards Safer Radiotherapy" recommends that Radiotherapy departments establish externally accredited Quality Management or QART Systems, in order to to maintain and continually improve the quality of service and to investigate and learn from incidents, errors and near misses.

In addition, regulations and standards such as ISO 9001 require healthcare organisations, such as the Radiotherapy Department at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, to assess the quality of service that they provide, and to assure patients of the high quality of services available.

"Q-Pulse is highly appropriate for use in establishing and maintaining a Quality Management System within the radiotherapy environment," explains Steve Williams, Radiotherapy Quality Assurance Lead Practitioner at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

"In maintaining compliance to multiple standards such as ISO 9001, IR(ME)R 2000, and various national NHS standards, Q-Pulse enables us to demonstrate our compliance to patients, assessment bodies and regulatory authorities, for example in providing evidence for core standards.

"Within Radiotherapy, we use Q-Pulse in managing quality-related processes including treatment, imaging, treatment preparation, physics planning, dosimetry and quality assurance. It’s proven extremely useful in managing document control, audits and the reporting of non-conformances within the QMS.

"In managing training records for staff, Q-Pulse also has proven very useful in tracking and monitoring mandatory training required of staff and personal review. Q-Pulse allows us to ensure that staff competencies can be maintained in enabling us to monitor staff training more effectively.

Steve concludes: "By providing department-wide access to real-time data on the performance of the quality system, Q-Pulse offers system-wide analysis for auditing and strategic overview of the operation of the ISO 9001 QMS within Radiotherapy."