Quality in the NHS

Everyone who uses the NHS expects to receive care of the highest standard. This “Duty of Quality” is a legal requirement and is found in the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003:

Quality in health care It is the duty of each NHS body to put and keep in place arrangements for the purpose of monitoring and improving the quality of health care provided by and for that body.”

To help the NHS achieve this consistently high quality the Department of Health introduced the concept of Clinical Governance:

“It is a framework through which NHS organisations are accountable for continuously improving the quality of their services and safeguarding high standards of care by creating an environment in which excellence in clinical care will flourish.” - Professor Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer
1997

More quotes on quality from the Chief Medical Officer

"The new NHS will have quality at it's heart. Without it there is unfairness. Every patient who is treated in the NHS wants to know that they can rely on high quality care when they need it. Every part of the NHS, and everyone who works in it, should take responsibility for working to improve quality" - A First Class Service - Quality in the new NHS - April 1998

A first class service - Quality in the new NHS

Clinical Governance - Department of Health website   

Standards for Better Health Declaration 2009

Clinical Governance at the Women’s

In a hospital there are many aspects to quality and the challenge is to co-ordinate all the different strands so that we provide a consistently high quality service.

To this end we have in place the following clinical governance groups:

•Trust CG Audit, Risk & Patient & Public Involvement sub-Committees of the Trust Board

•Trust Clinical Improvement Group

• Hospital Clinical Audit & Information Group
• Trust Risk Management Steering group

•Directorate Quality Improvement Groups including

• Clinical Improvement Groups
• Clinical Audit Groups
• Standards Groups
• Risk Groups

•Integrated Care Pathways Development Groups

•Practice Improvement Groups: Midwifery, Gynaecology Nursing

•Evidence Based Journal Clubs

•Women’s Council

•Information Governance & Research Governance groups

We also have Continued Professional Development, Education & Training, Mentorship and Supervision to ensure that all our staff are competent in their jobs.

Infection Control

We take infection control extremely seriously and for the sixth consecutive year there were no infections in any of the categories subject to Department of Health mandatory surveillance including MRSA bacteraemia and Clostridium Difficile.

To find out more about our infection control record read our Infection Control Annual Report for 2008-09

Infection Control Annual Report 2008/09

Hygiene Code
The Trust recently underwent an unannounced inspection by the Care Quality Commission (former Healthcare Commission) of our performance against the Hygiene Code. This was to assess how well we are protecting patients, workers and others from the identifiable risks of acquiring a healthcare-associated infection (HCAI). As of 1 April 2009, all NHS trusts must meet government regulations, which are supported by the code of practice on HCAIs and related guidance.

They found no evidence that the trust has breached the regulations to protect patients, workers and others from the risks of acquiring a healthcare-associated infection.

This page was last modified on Thu Feb 02 2012