Doctors must pursue quality improvement despite challenges, King’s Fund says

Abstract

Doctors should pursue schemes to improve the quality of care, however hardpressed and lacking in resources they think they are, says Vijaya Nath, director of leadership development at the think tank the King’s Fund. Speaking at a debate held at the King’s Fund, Nath told leading clinicians that doctors who feared that NHS trusts were paying “lip service” to quality improvement while cutting back vital posts should continue to drive forward innovations. “If clinical leaders don’t engage in the process of quality improvement [QI] and don’t keep talking about it and asking for it, who will? Now, in times of scarcity, is exactly the wrong time to disinvest in developing the talent of people in QI,” she said. Nath hosted an event on 23 September on the topic of achieving medical engagement through quality improvement. She said that strong medical leadership was vital to organisations’ efforts to improve the safety of patients and the quality of care and to the delivery of long lasting benefits to patients. But the NHS was unlikely to see a nationally funded quality improvement scheme, she said. She told her audience of around 40 clinicians, “You can’t wait for a national programme. You have to go out there and do something with what you can do. You have to focus on the 20% of the things that will give you a bigger impact, not the whole 100%.” Health experts increasingly look to the United States for evidence on improving care quality, she said, and the event …