Making quality everyone’s business: a case study of partnership in primary care
International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance
ISSN: 0952-6862
Article publication date: 1 June 2002
Abstract
Analysis and improvement of the quality of care has become everyone’s business in the new NHS. Audit of clinical outcomes and of patient satisfaction are to become routine. However, there is a weak link between audit and service quality, reflecting an insufficient emphasis on the process of organisational innovation. This case study illustrates how “a first class service” can be developed through a “stakeholder‐collaborative” evaluation approach. This partnership process can strengthen the audit‐quality link, leading to practical and shared suggestions for service development. Clinical outcome data from 400 consecutive adult mental health patients seen over a five‐year period by one clinical psychologist and patient satisfaction data (for the last 100 patients) were evaluated by 11 stakeholders. They evaluated these data in relation to Maxwell’s six quality criteria. Both the clinical outcomes (i.e. highly significant improvements following therapy) and the patient satisfaction data were judged favourably by the stakeholders, who used the information to suggest service improvements.
Keywords
Citation
Heath, P. and Milne, D. (2002), "Making quality everyone’s business: a case study of partnership in primary care", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 99-105. https://doi.org/10.1108/09526860210426973
Publisher
:MCB UP Ltd
Copyright © 2002, MCB UP Limited