NACEL Quality Improvement

What is Quality Improvement?

“Quality improvement involves the use of a systematic and coordinated approach to solving a problem using specific methods and tools with the aim of bringing about a measurable improvement within a health care setting. Improving quality is about making health care safe, effective, patient-centred, timely, efficient and equitable. It’s about giving the people closest to problems affecting care quality the time, permission, skills and resources they need to solve them. In the history of the NHS, there has never been a greater focus on improving the quality of health services.” The Health Foundation (2021)

Why is NACEL focusing on Quality Improvement?

As part of our renewed contract with HQIP, QI is a key focus. There have been many fantastic QI efforts from participating organisations in the past and we are keen to support these and help organisations along the way.

How is NACEL going to support QI?

Anyone participating in NACEL who has an interest in QI can get involved. We are particularly keen to hear from frontline clinicians (at any level). It is helpful if you are able to access your local data, via the new Data and Improvement Tool. Our DIT Guidance pages take you through how to do this.

When will QI start?

We will be supporting QI in a variety of ways, including:

  • The key frameworks/anchor documents that we have developed to drive QI can be found primarily in the 2024 Driver diagram with 10 key indicators (primary drivers) developed to indicate quality EOL, as well as in the Healthcare Quality Improvement Plan (HIP) that articulates 5 key national QI goals. These are hopefully useful reference points when looking at local data and considering areas for improvement.

  • We are developing a data and improvement tool that will host dashboards aligned with the 10 key indicators to help organisations and individuals understand and interrogate their data.

  • QI webinars – we will be delivering 3 QI webinars a year, responsive to the themes in the data and aligned with the 10 key indicators. We will have an expert guest speaker at each event and we’ll assist you with developing and delivering your QI plans. These will have CPD hours attached to them and you will receive a certificate for attending.

  • A NACEL QI Community of Practice – this is essentially a space to bring like-minded people together through a variety of different ways including the QI webinars. You will be on a contacts list and be alerted to anything relevant. Sign up to our QI Community of Practice here.

Who can get involved?

Local QI can start at any time. The NACEL team will increase our focus on QI after the release of the first round of data in spring. Take a look at our Key Dates page for more information about our data release timescales.