Welcome to the Quality Improvement online newsfeed. Here you’ll find all the latest research, news stories, policy updates and guidelines for all things QI. View our other newsfeeds for more subject-specific news.
Assessing the well-led key question for NHS trusts
Care Quality Commission – April 2024
This guidance outlines how the Care Quality Commission will assess the well-led key question to support NHS trusts to understand what good leadership looks like.
Balancing the risks and benefits of AI in the production of health information
Patient Information Forum – April 2024
Developed in collaboration with the Patient Information Forum’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) working group, this position statement aims to help members understand the AI landscape and how to manage it. It defines what AI is, outlines the risks and benefits of AI, provides a glossary of terms, and makes a case for developing AI use policies.
Balancing the risks and benefits of AI in the production of health information
Culture of care standards for mental health inpatient services
NHS England – 24th April 2024
The following co-produced guidance sets out the culture of care everyone, including people who use services, families, carers and staff, want to experience in mental health inpatient settings, and supports providers to realise this.
The standards apply to all NHS-funded mental health inpatient service types, including those for people with a learning disability and autistic people, as well as specialised mental health inpatient services such as mother and baby units, secure services, and children and young people’s mental health inpatient services.
Culture of care standards for mental health inpatient services
Clinical and care professional leadership in practice
NHS Confederation – 18th April 2024
How three systems are using clinical and care professional leadership in practice and the steps they are taking to deliver the five principles.
Further information – Clinical and care professional leadership in practice
Prioritising nutrition, hydration and dysphagia in an integrated care context
Public Policy Projects (PPP) – 2024
In 2023, Public Policy Projects (PPP) convened stakeholders for two roundtables to produce a series of recommendations highlighting the importance of embedding nutritional and hydrational health into integrated care strategies. The discussions focused on specific elements of the debate, including improving the management of dysphagia and care provided for frail populations in different care settings.
Roundtable delegates included NHS England clinical leadership, allied health professionals (AHPs) including speech and language therapists, social care providers, primary care representation nurses and other key health and care stakeholders. Key themes discussed at the roundtables:
- Implications of providing health and care for a ‘super-aged’ society and the role of nutritional and hydrational health.
- Why addressing eating, drinking and swallowing conditions is essential for the future of the health and care system.
- The burden of inaction on dysphagia to the NHS and wider sector, which is also linked to hydration management and the cost burden of pneumonia.
- How integrated care can lead to better pathways with regards to nutrition, hydration and managing malnutrition, with specific focus on the impact for people with dysphagia.
- Grappling with integrated care system workforce challenges and significant regional variation in specialist numbers.
- How to make speech and language therapy more attractive to new recruits as well as utilising a non-registered workforce with cross-professional representation to create a “whole-person approach” to care.
- Assessing hydration practice across health and social care settings, ensuring that nutritional supplements are available to patients moving across these settings.
Read the report – Prioritising nutrition, hydration and dysphagia in an integrated care context
Teamworking: Understanding barriers and enablers to supportive teams in UK health systems
GMC – 16th April
What are the key findings?
The research highlighted factors that facilitate or hinder effective teamwork within healthcare settings. These include factors relating to organisational structures, the workplace/environment, the makeup of the team, and individuals.
Enablers to effective teamwork include:
- effective communication
- continuity and familiarity with colleagues
- induction and support for new team members
- understanding roles and respect for diverse roles
- inclusivity and awareness of equality, diversity and inclusion
- positive culture and support.
Barriers to effective teamwork include:
- service demand pressures
- ineffective leadership
- misunderstanding of newer and emerging roles
- transient team structures
- power imbalances and negative hierarchy.
Read the report – Teamworking: Understanding barriers and enablers to supportive teams in UK health systems
Collaborate to innovate: learning from NHS, charity and life sciences industry experience to build a culture of research and innovation in the UK
NHS Confederation – 16 April 2024
Key points
- In recent years the UK has fallen behind in research, which means the NHS, healthcare professionals and the UK population risk reduced access to new treatments, diagnostics and state-of-the-art care. Although signs of recovery are starting to emerge, combining the resources and expertise of NHS, charity and life science industry partners is essential for changing this trajectory. This report, based on a roundtable discussion between the NHS Confederation, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (APBI) and health charity leaders, explores practical ways to boost UK research and engender a culture of innovation.
- Despite barriers to building a culture of cross-sector collaboration in health research and innovation, good practice exists. Charities are critical partners in the research and innovation ecosystem, bringing resources, expertise, public profile and trusted brands, convening power, professional networks, links with people and communities, and mechanisms for sharing good practice. More can be done to raise awareness of the value that working with health charities can offer the NHS, and this report highlights research case studies where charities play a key role.
- Insights from the roundtable convened to discuss these issues suggest there are five practical action areas that can drive progress: 1. Define a shared purpose. 2. Research and build on what already exists. 3. Invest in infrastructure for mainstreaming research and spreading innovation. 4. Value success to stimulate research and spread innovation. 5. Equip teams with the capacity to collaborate and change culture.
- This report is relevant to national and local policymakers, as well as those who are supporting patients and healthcare professionals to improve outcomes from research and innovation in systems. This includes those with leadership responsibilities for driving research, innovation and transformation at system or local level, managers with day-to-day responsibility for implementation, and charities leading on research, engagement and network development.
Read the report – Collaborate to innovate
Patient Experience of Diagnostics Report.
Patient Association – February 2024
Our latest report analyses the opinions and experiences of more than 1,000 NHS patients on diagnostic testing services.
The main message is clear: patients view diagnostics as a fundamental part of the NHS and one that should be prioritised over the coming years. They want to see greater prioritisation and investment in testing services.
Most respondents (93%) want testing capacity to be invested in over the coming years so that patients can receive tests and diagnosis more quickly. Funding and technology would enable quicker diagnosis and improved patient experiences.
Patients place such importance on diagnostics that 60% would consider paying for the tests they need if they faced a long wait on the NHS.
These findings highlight the need to deliver improvements in current services. The stakes are high, with early diagnosis leading to quicker treatment, better outcomes, and reduced hospitalisation.
Health inequalities in 2040: current and projected patterns of illness by deprivation in England
The Health Foundation
This report focuses on inequalities in major illness in England, notably among working-age people. It reveals that growing ill health will continue to significantly impact people’s lives and the economy. On current trends, 3.7 million working-age adults will be living with major illness by 2040 – up from 3 million in 2019. It warns that 80% (540,000) of this increase will be in the more deprived 50% of areas, further entrenching health inequalities and having considerable implications for local and regional economies.
Health inequalities in 2040: current and projected patterns of illness by deprivation in England
Age UK’s blueprint for improving the lives of older people
Age UK -2024
This report, published with the coming UK general election in mind, contains 52 separate policy recommendations covering many different aspects of later life. The nationally representative polling that informs the report shows that keeping the triple lock on the state pension, improving GP access, and reducing hospital waiting lists were top priorities for older people aged 65 and above.
Read the report – Age UK’s blueprint for improving the lives of older people
Quality Improvement News 