An Analysis of Quality Management in Health and Social Care Settings

This report delves into the critical aspects of managing quality within health and social care settings. It begins by examining the diverse perspectives of various stakeholders, including patients, NGOs, and government bodies, and how these perspectives shape the understanding of quality. The report also explores the role of external agencies, such as healthcare inspectorates and the CQC, in setting and enforcing quality standards. It further analyzes the impact of poor service quality on different stakeholders, highlighting the consequences for patients, NGOs, and employees. The report then outlines existing standards used to measure quality, such as those from NICE and CQC, and the different approaches to implementing these standards, including Total Quality Management. It also discusses barriers to achieving quality and evaluates the effectiveness of various systems, policies, and procedures. Finally, the report assesses methods for evaluating service quality from both external and internal perspectives, including the impact of involving service users in the evaluation process, offering a comprehensive overview of quality management in healthcare.

Managing Quality in
Health and Social Care

Table of Contents
Table of Contents.............................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Different stakeholders and their perspective in heath and social care.......................................1
1.2 Role of external agencies in setting standard............................................................................2
1.3 Impact of poor service quality on health and social care stakeholders......................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
2.1 Standard that exist in health and social care management for measuring quality.....................4
2.2 Different approaches to implement quality standards...............................................................5
2.3 Barriers which can prevent achieving quality in health and social care....................................6
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................7
3.1 Evaluation of effectiveness of systems, policies and procedures in health and social care......7
3.2 Factors which influence achievement of quality.......................................................................8
3.3 the different ways to improve the quality in health care...........................................................9
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................9
4 1.Evaluate methods for evaluating health and social care service quality with regard to external
and internal perspectives..................................................................................................................9
4 2. Discuss the impact that involving users of services in the evaluation process on the service
quality............................................................................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Quality is concept which which is varies according to different contexts and perspectives.
In the health and social care quality is concerned with the assurance, safety and security of
people. As maintaining quality in health and social care is very important in order to provide
safety to individual. The health and social concerns are a process and services which make
impact directly in individual life. These quality standards are formulated and regulated by
different regulatory agencies of country. The main aim of this project is to know perspective of
various stakeholders in health and social care regarding quality and impact of poor service
quality on health and social care stakeholders. There are some standard which exist in health care
in order to measure quality, is being explained in this report. As to provide quality, there are
some barriers which is also being explained in this report. The effectiveness of systems, policies
and procedures which is being used in health care is being explained. Apart from this, impact of
service users in on evaluation process has on service quality is being discussed.
TASK 1
1.1 Different stakeholders and their perspective in heath and social care
Stakeholders:
The stakeholders are those parties who has some interest in company and can affect
business operations directly and indirectly. As stakeholders can be internal or external for
organisations. Internal stakeholders are those who has direct relationship with organisation while
external stakeholders are those who do not work directly with organisation but they affect
business operations in some way. As there are different stakeholders for St. Thomas and Guy's
hospital these are from various background such as Patients are related with personal,
Government is a professional stakeholder for hospitals and NGO are part of social stakeholders
etc. are key stakeholder for health and social care (Stoto, 2013).
The perspective of Patient is to get better services in hospital and safe and healthy
environment within hospital. Apart from this patient want proper treatment for their diseases and
expect good caring.
The Non Government Organisation is being concerned about effectiveness, accuracy
and reliable services needs to be provided by hospitals.
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As Government expects that health and social care should follow the quality standards
which are being formulated by government in order to provide quality services to service users.
These are different stakeholders of social and health care and all stakeholders have
different perspective regarding the quality of healthcare and social services. These stakeholders
have different perspective for the quality as reason is being describes below:
The service user that is Patient thought for itself and they want themselves treated well
and good caring at hospital. They think as individualism instead of collectivism.
Non government organisation (NGO), they thinks from societal prospective and they
want society as a whole should get effective and qualitative health and social care services.
Government thinks differently as because they want that all health and social care service
provider should follow the quality standard accordingly (Straus and Graham, 2013).
1.2 Role of external agencies in setting standard
External Agencies:
External agencies are those agencies which control, monitor and review health care
facilities in nation. These agencies perform role of quality supervising authorities and pursuant of
quality care. The main role of these stakeholder is to protect interest of stakeholders. The
agencies set and enhance oversight mechanism by formulating different laws and legislation, and
regulation for federal, state and local authorities. There different kind of external agencies which
have different roles, these are as follows:
Healthcare Inspectorate:
The healthcare inspectorate are those who control and monitor all health and social care
related activities so that organisation can provide quality services to its service users. With help
of monitoring these inspector gets data and information of different social and health care
organisation about the quality of their services. So they provide ratings according to findings,
this helps service users to make choices about their services.
Care Quality Commission:
This commission is an autonomous body for health and social care institutions in
England. The main aim of this commission is to assure the better care facilities in care homes.
These facilities are like safe environment, effective and high quality services, good take care and
high quality equipments for treatment. As overall role is to enhance quality services in health and
social care institution like St Thomas and Guy’s hospital.
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Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency:
This is a government regulatory which main aim is ensure safe and effective medicines,
care devices and medical equipment. As the equipments should be in working condition and it
also ensure that organisations enhance quality and safety in care setting.
The health and social care environments brings together expertise of various agencies
which have deep knowledge of each and every aspect of social health care rules and regulations.
As healthcare inspectorate control and review different activities in social and health care
facilities while CQC make sure that hospital provides the better and safe, high quality services to
it service users. The main role of MHRA is to ensure medicine and equipments in effective and
safe manner. Overall it can be said that external agencies have capabilities to helps and assist
care facilities with reliable information and social capital in order to shape the rules
1.3 Impact of poor service quality on health and social care stakeholders.
The poor service quality by health and social care work have direct impact on the health
of stakeholders. As if institution will provide the poor service quality than it will create a
negative impact on the service users who goes there in order to avail better health facilities. This
disrupt the finance of institution as well as goodwill also. The reason for poor quality offering is
not having proper mechanism to provide the services to service users. This kind of service leads
to decline in patient services and they consider this as loss of their money. The impact on
different stakeholders are being discussed below:
Service Users or Patient:
As if patient will get poor services than there illness can not be cured properly. Due to
poor services from institution, the users will not be able to meet their needs accordingly and their
self esteem will also become low. The patient will feel devalued as it is a loss for money for
them (Reinhard and Samis, 2012).
On Non Government Organisation:
This is a major stakeholder for health and social care services which mainly focused on
the providing better and qualitative health services to its users. These NGO are more concerned
with the health of public and they continuously monitor and review health related policies. If
institution like St Thomas and Guy’s hospital provide poor services than it directly impact on its
stakeholders and overall goodwill of the NGO will get down in market.
Employees:
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The employees are major stakeholder of organisation if the social and health care
organisation provides the poor services than patient will blame the employees and it will create
bad image of employees and the organisation (Osborne and Strokosch, 2016).
TASK 2
2.1 Standard that exist in health and social care management for measuring quality
The main goal of standardisation is to assure the better quality in health and social care
environment. There are various regulatory which set the standard for organisations in order to
provide better and safe environment to its users. These standard seeks to make changes in health
and social care in order to aid humanity in their endeavours. The quality standard are summarise
sets of statements which mainly aims on the quality improvements within a health and social
care. These standards are derived from the NICE and accredited by NICE. The National Institute
for Health and Care Excellence makes guidelines and evidence based recommendation on wide
range of health and social care related topics. As NICE quality standard was published in 2013
with aim of reducing variation in the treatment and care of older people in care homes. The
quality standard which given by NICE for diabetes is being discussed below:
 As according to NICE quality standard, at diagnosis the structured education programme
for diabetes patient should be provided and that should be review annually.
 The patient should get customized and personalised nutrition and one should get advice
on physical activity from a trained professional
 The patient involved in annual care planning resulting in agreed and documented goals.
 As documented agreement on personalised HbA1c target ( usually 48 mmol/mol – 58
mmol/mol, 6.5% to 7.5% and patient to receive on going review of treatment to minimize
the hypoglycaemia (Mozley, 2017).
Yearly assessment for risk and presence diabetes complications with these to manage
appropriately.
 In the hospitals, patient should get special diabetes team.
 The patient should be assessed for psychological problems and managed adequately.
CQC quality standard are discussed below:
Care and welfare of people who use service:
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The CQC standard says that people should experience effective, safe and appropriate care
at the time of treatment.
Monitoring the quality of services:
As service user should be benefited from safe quality care so CQC ha standard that the
quality should always be monitored and review.
Safeguard to people from abusing:
As people or service users can be abused by the employees of health and social care
organisation so in order to prevent human right CQC has this standard.
Cleanliness and Infection control
To provide better health services it is very important to have cleanliness at health care
institution. People should experience a clean environment and should be protected from
infections.
Management of medicines:
According to CQC standard the people should be given proper information regarding
their medicines.
Difference between CQC and NICE:
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence allows help underpin the nature of
good and outstanding social care services. While CQC use quality standard to train its inspectors
to ensure consistency in judgements over the services which it is regulating. The CQC quality
standard mainly focuses in internal component of health care organisation like safety to service
users, respect and food and drink etc. But NICE quality standard focus on overall component
whether its external or internal as it has quality standard for all disease where as CQC does not
focus on overall disease (Macinko and Harris, 2015).
2.2 Different approaches to implement quality standards
Quality standard is a detail specification and requirement which needs to be followed by
the various health and social institution like St Thomas and Guy’s hospital. This standard or
system an improved understanding of quality index by implementing models of measuring
quality in care setting. As quality systems find or explore investigative approach and structural
equation model to find out application of sound models for quality service. There are different
approaches for implementing these systems. These are as follows:
Total Quality Management:
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Total quality management is quality improvement technique which is used by
organisation in order to enhance the quality of product and services. As in health and social care
system, the TQM is used with interchangeably with continuous focus on improving quality. The
St Thomas and Guy’s hospital can apply TQM, as it enables organisation to meet customer
requirement with help of effort of all employees. This constantly focus on improvement on
quality of product and service and achieve customer satisfaction.
Benchmarking:
Benchmarking is practice of business which comparing key metrics of their operations to
other similar organisations. This enables an organisation to compare the performance of one
product or service to other product or service. As it is useful to testing a product or service
against a reference point to quantify how much good or bad the product or service of one
company in order to compare with other. The St Thomas and Guy’s hospital can use
benchmarking in order to improve their quality system. As they can compare their services with
other organisation which are in same field. It will help company to implement different quality
system in their organisation.
Communication:
Communication refers to the passing of information from one person to other. There are
different ways to communicate the information that is staff meetings and a document which is
made needs to be circulated at organisation.
Policies and Guideline:
As St Thomas and Guy’s hospital can set guideline regarding the following implemented
quality standard (Jacobsen and Wagner, 2012).
2.3 Barriers which can prevent achieving quality in health and social care
Barriers are those which stop an individual or organisation in order to achieve their goals.
And these can be find everywhere. As to achieve successfully quality in health and social care is
not possible due to some barriers. There are two kinds of barriers which are internal and external
barriers. These are discussed as below:
Internal barrier:
The internal barriers are those which are internal part of organisation and these are major
barrier which prevent can prevent organisation like St Thomas and Guy’s hospital to improve
their quality. These are discussed as below:
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Resources:
Resources are those which is used by organisations in order to implement quality system
effectively. It is very important to have enough resources in order to implement quality standard.
As these can be barrier also for organisation, if they have scarcity of resources than it would be
difficult for institution to achieve quality services. For example, St Thomas and Guy’s hospital
should have proper resources like latest and advanced medical equipment so that they can
provide quality services to service users.
Organisational Structure:
Organisational structure is very important for achieving quality services in organisation.
As it can be a barrier also, if one does not have adequate organisational structure than they would
not be able to provide better services to its service users (Holman and Jeffcoate, 2012).
External barrier:
There are some external barriers also which prevent organisation to achieve quality
services. These are as follows:
Legislation:
The laws can prevent organisation to achieve quality services. As for example, if
organisations are using those resources which are ban to use under legislation than quality
service can not be achieved.
Social Policy:
The social policy can be major barrier for achieving quality services. As societies has
some rules and policies which needs to be followed by organisation so it is difficult for
organisation to achieve quality services.
TASK 3
3.1 Evaluation of effectiveness of systems, policies and procedures in health and social care
There are various systems, policies and procedures which are used by St Thomas and
Guy’s hospital in health and social care in order to achieve quality in the services offered. These
are as follows:
Total Quality Management:
Total quality management is mainly centric on the customer satisfaction through quality
products and services. The main benefit of implementing TQM, it is helpful in cost reduction.
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Clinical governance:
Clinical governance is a systematic approach in order to maintain and improve the quality
of patient care within the NHS. This clinical governance can be very helpful for St Thomas and
Guy’s hospital to achieve their quality services effectively (Hjälmhult and Lomborg, 2012).
ISO9000:
This is quality measurement standard which is authorised by government, it sets the
quality standard for the different products. It ensures the organisation meet needs of customers
and other stakeholders while meeting statutory and regulatory requirements related to a product
or services. These are very helpful in achieving quality systems in organisation. As in hospital
different medical equipments are being used so these are certified by ISO9000.
Apart from this NHS is following has positive impact on the health care system of nation
as the organisation has proposed outline for management of operational activities and maintain
the practices exercise according to requirement of patient.
It can be said that system and policies which have been followed by the local and national
health care organisations has good and positive effect on health care settings for achieving the
quality and meeting satisfaction level of patients. Furthermore the organisation will be looking
forward to improve the services with the help of surveys and collecting feedbacks from patient
and care worker which plays crucial role in planning of new policies and make changes in
existing system to improve quality.
3.2 Factors which influence achievement of quality
There are various factors which make impact on the achievement of quality. These are as
follows:
Resource availability:
This is one of crucial factors which have significant effect on the process of achieving
health and social care service. As to maintain the quality in services it needed the natural
resources as well as other resources also. The scarcity of resources in the St Thomas and Guy’s
hospital can affect quality services (Haynes, 2012).
Size and service nix:
As to maintain effective quality services, the size and service of organisation have
significant role on it. The analysis shows that organisation like NHS provides the service in both
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rural and urban locations but due to unskilled or lack of skiledhealth car staff is making impact
on process of achieving quality in health and social care (Ginter and Swayne, 2018).
3.3 the different ways to improve the quality in health care.
It is very important to improve the quality of services in health care. There are different ways
these are as follows:
Customer service:
The organisation should provide the better services to customer so that they feel good
about their organisation ad their services. The feedbacks from customers are very helpful to
improve the quality in health care services.
Valuing front line staff:
The staff and employees are valuable asset for the organisation. They contribute in
growth of company. With help of these employees one can provide better services to its service
users. It will help this one can motivate its employees in order improve their quality in services.
Putting people first:
This is very important to put people first in order to enhance the quality services. As
these are the one who render services of hospitals so they are aware about where to make
changes in policy of organisation (Bircher and Kuruvilla, 2014).
TASK 4
4 1.Evaluate methods for evaluating health and social care service quality with regard to external
and internal perspectives
Evaluation of effect of the care quality commission is supportive to analyse the
application of external environment. To analysing the external factors in which company
perform is functions care quality commission provide helps. Financial performance of St.Thomas
and Guy’s hospital can inquire by internal factors Total quality management and it provides
support to know the behaviour of service seekers. St Thomas and Guy’s hospital follow this
approach in health and social care benefits. Quality assurance programs at hospital has also
focused on the particular problems such as administration, supervision and documentation. Care
quality commission is beneficial for the corporation to maintain healthcare practices and
procedures and through it level of satisfaction can be enhanced in context to service seekers. For
health care total quality management is good reason being it provides help to evaluate the
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internal and external factors. St Thomas and Guy’s hospital can benefited from total quality
management which help it to achieve organisational goal and success (Berwick, 2016).
4 2. Discuss the impact that involving users of services in the evaluation process on the service
quality
Quality system can be assess by St Thomas and Guy’s hospital in context to concentration at
the collaborative work. It provides the importance to the quality assessment rudiments in context
to hygienic, safe and efficient environment. Social care needs and health are wider perspective
by acknowledging the quality. Injuries can appear for service seekers by failure involvement. It
is not easy to evaluate the quality related to social care and health when the practices are done in
context to separation from the stakeholders. Different type of service seekers an bring creativity
because they have different working style. There are various factors which can maximize the
quality at St Thomas and Guy’s hospital. Diversity can be analysed by the developments in
company and quality evaluation is essential for St Thomas and Guy’s hospital as a result it can
able to make supervision in order to analyse the performance. More facilities and healthy
environment is beneficial for the patients. So better facilities and proper health care can help the
hospital to bring it new heights of success (Al-Abri and Al-Balushi, 2014).
Conclusion
In the conclusion it can be said that quality of service plays important role in organition.
As there are different stakeholders for organisation and everyone have different perspective for
that. As one should know the different perspective of quality relation in health and social care
services. There different strategy which cab be adopted by the business to achieve their quality
services. As there are some systems, policies in health and social care which needs to be
followed by organisation.
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