Drug misuse prevention

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) - This quality standard covers the prevention or delay of harmful use of drugs by children, young people and adults most likely to start using drugs, or already experimenting or using drugs occasionally.  Click here to read further.

NIHR Signal Quality improvement collaboratives can improve clinical processes and patient outcomes

Quality improvement collaboratives (QICs) were largely effective across a wide range of healthcare problems and settings. Of the 64 studies included in this systematic review, 53 showed improvement in some of the healthcare processes and patient outcomes that they investigated. A small number of studies also showed that collaboratives were cost-effective, and the improvements were sustainable for at least six months.


Collaboratives originated in the US in the late 1980s. They provide opportunities for teams from different sites to learn from each other and jointly develop improvement initiatives around specific topics, often using a standard method and framework. They have become increasingly popular without strong evidence to support their use.


From the NIHR Dissemination Centre

This quality standard covers the management of Parkinson’s disease in adults. It does not include treatment of parkinsonism not caused by Parkinson’s disease. It describes high-quality care in priority areas for improvement.[QS164]

New: Quality standard


This quality standard covers the management of Parkinson’s disease in adults. It does not include treatment of parkinsonism not caused by Parkinson’s disease. It describes high-quality care in priority areas for improvement.

5 years on: responses to Francis: changes in board leadership and governance in acute hospitals in England since 2013

This report, written by the Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham in partnership with the University of Manchester and the Nuffield Trust, reveals that hospital boards report that they are placing a high priority on care quality and safety, and many invested significantly in nurse and medical staffing in the wake of the Francis Report. However, some hospital boards reported feeling that quality assurance as a pressure, as the demands of multiple external regulators was reported to sometimes feel burdensome, threatening to distract from a focus on the actual work of service improvements.

5 Years On: Responses To Francis: Changes In Board Leadership And Governance In Acute Hospitals In England Since 2013

This report, written in partnership with the University of Manchester and the Nuffield Trust, reveals that hospital boards report that they are placing a high priority on care quality and safety, and many invested significantly in nurse and medical staffing in the wake of the Francis Report. However, some hospital boards reported feeling that quality assurance as a pressure, as the demands of multiple external regulators was reported to sometimes feel burdensome, threatening to distract from a focus on the actual work of service improvement. Click here for Kings Fund blog

Families should feel supported when their child is born preterm, says NICE

Children born preterm should be offered developmental check-ups to help identify any problems or disorders early on, NICE has said in its latest draft quality standard. 

The draft standard aims to improve the follow-up care that is provided to families from when they start planning the discharge of their preterm child from hospital.

Quality criteria for apprenticeships announced

The Institute for Apprenticeships (IFA) has published a quality statement defining what constitutes a high quality apprenticeship, and will use this to develop a quality strategy.

Health at a glance 2017

This report from the OECD outlines the latest comparable data and trends on different aspects of the performance of health systems in OECD countries. The analysis of the UK health system finds that the overall health of Britons is similar to the OECD average and that access to care is generally strong but that the indicators for quality of care are below the OECD average.

Quarter of hospital patients denied rapid review – even on weekdays

More than one in four patients do not see a medical consultant within 14 hours of being admitted to hospital – even on weekdays, new data from NHS England reveals.

The information shows that on weekdays across all trusts, 73 per cent of patients see a consultant within the period, which is a key requirement under national “seven day service” standards.

The figure is even lower – 70.3 per cent – at weekends.

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New Getting It Right First Time leads announced

Clinical leads for three areas of the Getting It Right First Time programme have been announced.

The £60m clinical efficiency and safety programme is run by NHS Improvement and sees clinician led teams look at service lines in every trust in England to determine whether they are operating at sufficient scale, among other factors.

Some trusts change their practices or stop providing some services as a result of the subject area GIRFT reports published so far on orthopaedics and general surgery.

The programme announced clinical leads for endocrinology, rheumatology and stroke medicine last week.

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Eyes Right!

New RCN guidance, Eyes Right!, helping non-ophthalmic health care professionals deliver quality care safely.

Concerns as mixed sex ward breaches more than double

Mixed sex breaches in September more than double compared to same month two years ago

NHS Providers warn hard fought gains are being lost

Month on month A&E waiting time data shows improvement

The number of mixed sex ward breaches more than doubled over the last two years, prompting concerns from senior NHS managers about care quality and patient dignity.

NHS England’s latest mixed sex breaches data showed there were 969 breaches in September – a breach rate of 0.6 per 1,000 finished consultant episodes.

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Learning from improvement: special measures for quality

Four years after the introduction of special measures, NHS Improvement reviewed the experience of trusts that exited the process so we can better understand why they entered special measures, what actions they took and how they implemented change to improve.

Performance Tracker: Autumn 2017

This report from the Institute for Government is the first in a series of data-driven analyses on the performance of government. The report uses government data to examine five key public services: hospitals, adult social care, police, prisons and schools. It finds that until recently the government managed to maintain the quality of public services while controlling spending however it warns that now the UK faces a combination of failing public services and breached spending controls.

See Spring's Performance Tracker Report

Engaging staff to improve quality case study

NHS Employers' latest staff engagement case study explores how Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has developed a number of ways to support its quality improvement programme.

Focusing primarily on staff engagement, the study looks at the development of the Sheffield Microsystems Coaching Academy, forming Listening into Action groups and the creation of trust values. The case study also highlights the benefits the organisation has seen as part of its 'Making it Better' transformation programme.

Sepsis [QS161]

New NICE quality standard covers the recognition, diagnosis and early management of sepsis for all populations. It describes high-quality care in priority areas for improvement.

Sere also Sepsis guidance implementation advice for adults and the Cross-system sepsis action plan 2017 from NHS England.

Cerebral palsy in children and young people [QS 162]

New Quality standard

This quality standard covers diagnosing, assessing and managing cerebral palsy in children and young people under 25. It describes high-quality care in priority areas for improvement.

Keeping quality standards up to date

This quality standard is reviewed each year and updated if needed.
Next review: August 2018

Making the case for quality improvement: lessons for NHS boards and leaders

This report by The King's Fund has been co-authored with The Health Foundation.

• The NHS is facing significant financial and operational pressures, with services struggling to maintain standards of care. Now, more than ever, local and national NHS leaders need to focus on improving quality and delivering better-value care. All NHS organisations should be focused on continually improving quality of care for people using their services. This includes improving the safety, effectiveness and experience of care.
• Quality improvement – the use of methods and tools to continuously improve quality of care and outcomes for patients – should be at the heart of local plans for redesigning NHS services. NHS leaders have a vital role to play in making this happen – leadership and management practices have a significant impact on quality. Studies have shown that board commitment to quality improvement is linked to higher-quality care, underlining the leadership role of boards in this area.
• Improving quality and reducing costs are sometimes seen as conflicting aims when they are in fact often two sides of the same coin. There are many opportunities in the NHS to deliver better outcomes at lower cost (improving value), for example by reducing unwarranted variations in care and addressing overuse, misuse and underuse of treatment. There are many examples across the NHS showing that even relatively small-scale quality improvement initiatives can lead to significant benefits for patients and staff, while also delivering better value.
• The potential benefit is even greater if quality improvement techniques are applied consistently and systematically across organisations and systems. However, this is not currently the case. To deliver the changes that are needed to sustain and improve care, the NHS needs to move from pockets of innovation and isolated examples of good practice to system-wide improvement.

In this briefing, we outline 10 lessons for NHS leaders. These provide a starting point for leaders seeking to embed quality improvement in their work.

Exclusive: Variation in surgery standards depending on time of day flagged

National Emergency Laparotomy Audit reveals widespread variation in standards of care for thousands of patients

Patients operated on at night and after midnight had higher chance of death than those treated during the day

Almost a quarter of hospitals missing key targets to get patients to operating theatres within two hours.

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State of Care 2016/17

State of Care is the CQC's annual assessment of health and social care in England. The report looks at the trends, highlights examples of good and outstanding care, and identifies factors that maintain high-quality care.

This year’s report shows that the quality of care has been maintained despite some very real challenges. Most of us are receiving good, safe care and many services that were previously rated inadequate have recognised our inspection findings, made the necessary changes and improved.

The fact that quality has been maintained in the toughest climate most can remember is testament to the hard work and dedication of staff and leaders. However, as the system continues to struggle with increasingly complex demand, access and cost, future quality is precarious.