The CQI and the NHS

There have been a number of memorable moments in my career, but the buzz in this week's meeting of healthcare quality folk is something particularly special.

Under the auspices of the Chartered Quality Institute, we met to hear presentations on the state of quality in the NHS and the state of quality improvement training. I found the view from NHS Tayside particularly encouraging. They have been working with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement for 8 years to train staff in quality improvement methodology; they are aiming to have 0.5% of staff as QI experts; 10-15% QI facilitators; and the rest familiar with QI methodology. Doing so should allow ground-level QI projects to be run quickly and easily, but also robustly with data, without needing to go through bureaucratic approval processes.

(Needless to say, the organization still needs an aim and the leadership to maintain constancy of purpose!)

The purpose of the meeting was also to create a Healthcare Special Interest Group (SIG) for the CQI, to provide an industry-standard quality voice for the NHS. I believed that it made sense for the first chair to be a CQI member (MCQI) and a Chartered Quality Professional (CQP) - that is, a demonstrable expertise in QI - rather than just someone who merely had an interest in quality. To that end, I was delighted when Philip Carroll was elected as the founding chair. I will attempt to assist as his deputy. Our first action has been to prepare a response to the draft document from the English Department of Health's National Quality Board on maintaining and improving quality from April 2013. This is a good start, but I think it needs more work to fulfil its potential.