Evaluating Healthcare Services and Quality Management

The given assignment is about evaluating healthcare services and quality management. It requires a student to provide references from various books and journals, as well as online resources, related to the topic. The student needs to critically analyze the importance of quality management in healthcare services, including patient engagement, care integration, and total quality management. Additionally, they should explore the role of leadership and management in achieving high-quality healthcare. The assignment also involves referencing a specific book and article, which suggests that the student should have a deep understanding of the topic and be able to apply theoretical concepts to real-world scenarios.

Managing quality in health
and social care

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1 ...........................................................................................................................................1
Covered in Fact sheet.............................................................................................................1
TASK 2 ...........................................................................................................................................1
2.1 Standards that exist in health and social care for measuring quality................................1
2.2 Different approaches to implementing quality systems...................................................2
2.3 Potential barriers to delivery of quality health and social care services...........................3
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................4
3.1 Effectiveness of systems, policies and procedures used in the health and social care setting
in achieving quality................................................................................................................4
3.2 Factors influencing achievement of quality in health and social care..............................5
3.3 Ways of improving quality in health and social care facility...........................................5
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................6
Covered in PPT.......................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Management of quality in health care organization is inevitable. Quality management
should be an on-going and significant process of the health care organization. Quality
management in health care organization lead to safety and protection of the patient and allowing
the employees dealing with different situation actively and with quality (Acharya and et. al.,
2017). This report is being prepared with the aim of discussing the importance of quality in
health care organization and different ways and aspects it can be managed. The report will
identify the stakeholders of health care organization and how poor service quality impacts their
health. The report will also identify the barriers and other factors to quality in health and social
care organization and the effectiveness of policies, system and procedure to deal with the same.
In the last the report will evaluate the methods for evaluation of quality in health care and impact
of involvement of user of services in process of quality.
TASK 1
Covered in Fact sheet
TASK 2
2.1 Standards that exist in health and social care for measuring quality
There are different standards in every health and social care organization. Standards are
helpful in maintaining the quality of health and social care services in NHS hospital. Standards
include the level of excellence which can be followed effectively in order to meet the desired
level of quality. As per the case of Alicia Richman, there is a need to set the standards which can
enhance the quality of services in the NHS hospital. The significant standards are there which
can be followed for ensuring double quality services such as ISO 9000/14000, standards by
NMC, CQC, code of standards, etc. These standards assure the quality and have specified
different aspects of maintaining the quality of services (Balarajan, Selvaraj and Subramanian,
2011).
The Measuring standards consists of best practice, benchmarks, performance indicators,
charters, codes of practice, legislation, regulations and guidelines which should be followed by
NHS for measuring quality of services. Initially, Minimum standards involves planning and
procedures for management of medicines, controlled drugs, infection prevention and medical
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records of patients in NHS which reduce chance of mistakes in future. However, Best practices
are required to be set and implement which include technology assessment, evidence based
medicine and clinical practice guidelines to provide correct treatment for solving health problem
of people including Alicia Richman. Moreover, Benchmarks should be prepared for
improvement in knowledge, practices and procedures of care practitioners in order to attain
better outcomes of medications.
2.2 Different approaches to implementing quality systems
The quality system in NHS England requires implementing the friendly practices which
can motivate each worker to provide their best (Bowling, 2014). Quality standards are necessary
to be implemented with proper approaches to planning, roles, responsibilities, effective
communication, monitoring, and evaluation. In context of Alicia Richman, it is necessary for
NHS to implement different approaches for solving issues faced by her and improve their
treatment criteria for improving quality of services.
Planning – The team of professionals associated with case of Alicia Richman in NHS are
required to make an appropriate planning for conduct proper treatment procedures in correct
manner. It involves to accurately diagnose complications of her condition and them apply
medications to solve the problems appropriately.
Target setting – The target of outcomes should be set according to actual condition of
Alicia Richman and respective treating process to be carried out. It is helpful to understand that
medication is suitable or not for particular patient along with evaluating need to change specific
medication accordingly for maintaining quality.
Communication – Alicia Richman complaints about improper communication between
professionals which is required to be improved in NHS by applying effective technologies. They
can adopt advanced communication system to convey medical information to related carers for
conduct correct procedure of chemotherapies or immunotherapy for providing better quality
services (Brooks and Hestnes, 2010).
Adaptation to change – As per views of Alicia Richman, various changes are required
in NHS regarding cleanliness & hygiene, behaviour of staff, communication amongst
professionals and waiting time for treatment. It is helpful to avoid infections & risks which
facilitate reduce issues of incorrect medication in respect of maintaining quality of medical
facilities.
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Audit – There are different types of resources such as financial, equipment, personnel,
accommodation which are essential to conduct operations in proper manner for welfare of
patients. In case of Alicia Richman, the inconvenience faced by her can be removed by
conducting resource audit in NHS accordingly.
2.3 Potential barriers to delivery of quality health and social care services
There are different potential barriers in context of delivering better quality of health &
social care services. It involves internal and external barriers having their own role for
preventing delivery of required standards of medical facilities (Carman and et. al., 2013).
External barriers
Inter-agency interactions – The inter-agency interactions may create confusion between
standards of treatments due to which proper decision making is not possible. It impacts on
quality of medical services provided to patients like Alicia Richman.
Legislation – There are several legislations like Health & social Act, 2012 and Equality
Act 2010 which may prevent to conduct correct medications due to following set criteria of legal
rules in NHS.
Internal barriers
Risks – This involves several risk factors like inappropriate machines, equipments or
patient records which may results into complicated situation. It is necessary for NHS to evaluate
risk factors and solve them immediately in order to deliver correct treatments to people including
Alicia Richman.
Resources – There are different resources like funding which is a significant source of
running operations of any business constantly and effectively (WHO, 2018). There must be the
regular flow of fund in case of health and care services. The quality of services will only be
delivered with the help of sufficient funds in hand. This can be a major barrier for quality
services in NHS. The emergency of patient Alicia Richman is not handled effectively due to lack
of fund.
Organisational structures – The organisational structure has its own criteria which
should be followed by every employees working there to conduct different operational activities
regularly (Croft and Parish, 2013). These policies and rules of NHS are responsible for avoiding
beneficial procedures for patient in order to obey desired norms of hospital which can consider
as barrier for delivering better quality of services to Alicia Richman.
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TASK 3
3.1 Effectiveness of systems, policies and procedures used in the health and social care setting in
achieving quality
System, policy and procedure can be different in the different and same industries
depending on the requirements and availability of resources (Hashmi, 2018). The standards in
the quality of services can only be achieved with the help of the effective system, policy and
procedure. Policies include the basic expectations and standards of organization with references
to its goals. Policies promote the quality of services of health care and ensure that the services
are in accordance with the professional standard. Employees also face many challenges and
distractions when facing with different situation and this can only be corrected with the help of
proper procedure. In case of NHS hospital, they are required to apply several effective system
and procedures for improving quality that are explained further –
Management leadership – This involves to apply management leadership in NHS to
measuring and achieving goals by controlling complications which facilitate to improve quality
of medication processes respectively (Drummond and et. al., 2015). However, it is beneficial for
Alicia Richman to gain correct treatment and attention of carers for solving problem of breast
cancer.
Involving people – The NHS should involve employees for taking suggestions for
betterment of services and feedbacks from service users which facilitate to take need actions to
increase patients outcomes. NHS staff is required to listen problems of patients like Alicia
Richman provide views regarding cleanliness, hygiene, ignoring symptoms and inaccurate
behaviour of employees in respect of removing them (Starfield, 2012).
Control of process – The NHS hospital is required to be effective in providing safe
procedure in doing surgeries and controlling rate of infection but lacking in many other aspects.
Controlled processes reduce complications and infections which facilitate achieve better quality
of medical facilities rendered to service users.
Total Quality Management (TQM) – This consists criteria of ensuring quality in every
specific activity of operations so that small improvement in single step will results into huge
change of outcomes in NHS. Total quality management approach will also eliminate the chances
of errors and carelessness of employees in providing services (Goetsch and Davis, 2014).
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3.2 Factors influencing achievement of quality in health and social care
There are various types of factors which impacts on achieving quality in health and social
care that should be analysed and solved them immediately.
Teamwork- In large size organization and health care setting the teamwork plays an
effective role for getting the fruitful results. Employees of NHS should know how they work in a
team is performed. In case of Alicia Richman, improper team work in NHS is responsible for
incorrect treatment which impacts negatively on patient health accordingly.
Lack of training and development system – This can be described as training and
coaching session to the workers of NHS in order to enhance their knowledge, abilities and skills.
It is always the workers which can provide better services to customers. They must be trained
and developed for providing quality services which is beneficial for patients like Alicia Richman
to gain accurate medication (Holden and et. al., 2015 ).
Lack of proper code and standards- With the strictness in the follow up of the code of
standards, there is also need to have effective standards which can give proper guidance and
directions to employees of NHS. The code of standards not only be strict to be followed but must
also make sense in terms of understanding and implementation. NHS should set standards of
performance which helps to Alicia Richman to get rid off the problem of breast cancer properly.
3.3 Ways of improving quality in health and social care facility
In present time, health and social care sector has been basically fruitful for people who
have invested. Apart from this, quality plays a crucial role which directly put impact upon
customer's perception over the facilities that are provided by firms that are performing operations
in healthcare sector (Payne, 2015). In this context, some of factors are given beneath:
Valuing front line staff – This basically involves training which should be given to front
line staff. With the help of this, maximum benefits could be gained by NHS because they directly
deal with patients and it is required for them to treat well.
Customer service - The system of providing services to the patient should be set in such
a manner that it can take care of a patient who is dealing with the dangerous disease (Oliver,
2014). Hospital is always meant for the protection of employees and if such a thing will not exist
in the NHS then it will hamper the value in the market.
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Putting people first - The service receiver should also be given some autonomy in
deciding the best way of treatment for them and this will enhance their satisfaction and
motivated to take services from the NHS.
Internally generated standards – This involves to maintain environment of the hospital
must be clean and healthy as it is one of the ways to create a positive impact on the patient to
avail services of NHS. The unhealthy environment can also impact negatively on the health of
the patient. Moreover, an electronic system should always be there for recording the information
of a patient or any other information (Naidoo and Wills, 2015).
TASK 4
Covered in PPT
CONCLUSION
From the above report. It is conclude that quality in health and social care services is a
fundamental right of the human. The external agencies play an effective role in leading the
public and private health care organization to ensure complete quality in services and implement
proper standards of care and protection to the patient.
NHS has been found to be lacking in fund and resources which resulted in wrong
treatment of one of the patients named Alicia Richman. NHS England needs to make efforts in
making its standards and policies more effective. The environment is also required to maintain in
a healthy manner using the teamwork and proper coordination of employees. There can also be
involvement of user of services which can give good ideas of making the quality up to their need
and want.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Acharya, B. and et. al., 2017. Partnerships in mental healthcare service delivery in low-resource
settings: developing an innovative network in rural Nepal. Globalization and
health, 13(1), p.2.
Balarajan, Y., Selvaraj, S. and Subramanian, S. V., 2011. Health care and equity in India. The
Lancet, 377(9764), pp.505-515.
Bowling, A., 2014. Research methods in health: investigating health and health services.
McGraw-Hill Education (UK).
Brooks, P. and Hestnes, B., 2010. User measures of quality of experience: why being objective
and quantitative is important. IEEE network, 24(2).
Carman, K.L., Dardess, P., Maurer, M., Sofaer, S., Adams, K., Bechtel, C. and Sweeney, J.,
2013. Patient and family engagement: a framework for understanding the elements and
developing interventions and policies. Health Affairs, 32(2), pp.223-231.
Croft, B. and Parish, S.L., 2013. Care integration in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care
Act: Implications for behavioral health. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and
Mental Health Services Research, 40(4), pp.258-263.
Drummond, M. F. and et. al., 2015. Methods for the economic evaluation of health care
programmes. Oxford university press.
Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S. B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Holden, R.J., Eriksson, A., Andreasson, J., Williamsson, A. and Dellve, L., 2015. Healthcare
workers' perceptions of lean: A context-sensitive, mixed methods study in three Swedish
hospitals. Applied ergonomics, 47, pp.181-192.
Naidoo, J. and Wills, J. eds., 2015. Health studies: an introduction. Macmillan International
Higher Education.
Oliver, R.L., 2014. Satisfaction: A Behavioral Perspective on the Consumer: A Behavioral
Perspective on the Consumer. Routledge.
Payne, M., 2015. Modern social work theory. Oxford University Press.
Starfield, B., 2012. Primary care: an increasingly important contributor to effectiveness, equity,
and efficiency of health services. SESPA
Storey, J., 2016. Changing theories of leadership and leadership development. In Leadership in
Organizations (pp. 33-58). Routledge.
Online
Hashmi K., 2018. Introduction and implementation of total quality management
(TQM)..Available at https://www.isixsigma.com/methodology/total-quality-management-
tqm/introduction-and-implementation-total-quality-management-tqm/. Accessed on
28.11.2018
WHO. 2018.Management for health and services delivery.Available at
http://www.who.int/management/quality/monitoring_evaluation/en/. Accessed on
28.11.2018
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