Ensure that governance, leadership and accountability for a Quality Management System (QMS) is clear. Leadership should be visible and focused at all levels, with activities driven by the organisation’s vision and values for quality. Leaders should connect each QMS to organisational, staff and patient priorities and ensure that everyday work aligns with purpose and strategy. A QMS should be owned and driven by senior leaders within organisations.
Leaders and managers should take a long-term, stakeholder-centric view to develop a clear organisational vision. This includes showing a long-term commitment to developing the organisation’s approach to quality management. This commitment will often require leaders to stay the course in the face of pressure to focus on short term quality performance metrics or other strategic priorities such as waiting lists and productivity. This strategic discipline will require difficult choices.
Ensure your governance, leadership and accountability is effective in sustainably delivering care across the domains of quality. In particular, leadership plays an instrumental role in supporting connectivity and coherence across the different aspects of a QMS.
Leadership needs to drive all other QMS enablers and activity. The importance of leadership is emphasised by the emerging evidence on quality management systems.