Day-to-day responsibility for smooth operational running of trusts lies with their boards, and when things go wrong, formal oversight of trust boards is provided by regulators. But between those two stools is performance management; in the current system, that sits with commissioners.
This Future Hospital Programme case study comes from Withybush Hospital. It lays out the process for initiating an organised quality improvement project run by trainees, with the coordination of a lead doctor.
Open access. Letters of complaint written by patients and their advocates reporting poor healthcare experiences represent an under-used data source. The lack of a method for extracting reliable data from these heterogeneous letters hinders their use for monitoring and learning. To address this gap, we report on the development and reliability testing of the Healthcare Complaints Analysis Tool (HCAT).
Patient participation in healthcare is recognised internationally as essential for consumer-centric, high-quality healthcare delivery. Its measurement as part of continuous quality improvement requires development of agreed standards and measurable indicators. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details
CQC’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards and the Chief Executive of NHS Improvement, Jim Mackey have written to all 255 NHS hospital trusts in England to ask them to consider quality and finances on equal footing in their planning decisions.
Ahead of publishing the consultation response into the functions of the office of the National Guardian, Dame Eileen Sills has set out the principles and priorities that will guide her first months in post.
‘Responding to Concerns’, is a new educational film developed by Health Education England that aims to improve patient safety. Developed with input from patient safety experts, including our raising concerns network, the film aims to equip staff with the knowledge, skills and confidence to adequately and safely respond to patient safety concerns.
Four evidence reviews written to support work NICE carried out on staffing levels in the NHS have been released. Under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, the documents had been withheld to give NHS Improvement time to study them in their new remit to consider service improvement. The release of the documents follows an internal review of the FOI decision.
Background: evidence from inspection programmes suggest that the quality of care provided by individual care homes for older people is very variable. Aside from periodic inspection, there is limited information that is routinely collected and can be used to monitor quality.
Objectives: to describe a method for using routine hospital data on admissions of older people as means for monitoring quality of care within a care home. To explore how this might be applied and used. Login using your SSSFT NHS OpenAthens for full text. SSOTP - request a copy of the article from the library - www.sssft.nhs.uk/library
Dr Paul Lelliott, Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (and lead for mental health) said:
"We welcome this report, which highlights the failure of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust to investigate and learn from the deaths of people who received care from their Learning Disability and Mental Health services. We will be working closely with NHS England, Monitor and the Health and Safety Executive to understanding the implications of its findings.
"We will also be undertaking a wider review into the investigation of deaths of people with Learning Disabilities in Mental Health and Acute trusts in different parts of the country. As part of this review, we will assess whether opportunities for prevention of death have been missed, for example by late diagnosis of physical health problems."
Our Experts by Experience programme, which involves the public in its inspections, is expanding and looking for new recruits.
Experts by Experience are people who have personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses health, mental health and/or social care services that are regulated by CQC.
The successful winners of new contracts to provide CQC with Experts by Experience are the organisations Remploy in the North, South and London regions and Choice Support in the Central region. They are now looking for new Experts by Experience to join CQC inspection teams and help deliver other aspects of CQC’s work.
We have announced today the appointment of Dame Eileen Sills, the Chief Nurse at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, as the first National Guardian for speaking up safely in the NHS.
Open access. Quality improvement (QI) methods have been introduced to healthcare to support the delivery of care that is safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable and cost effective. Of the many QI tools and methods, the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle is one of the few that focuses on the crux of change, the translation of ideas and intentions into action