Commit to improving and managing for quality across the whole healthcare system. A truly systemic view will require looking beyond your organisational boundaries to learn how to continually, reliably and sustainably meet evolving population needs. Incorporate the broader ambitions within the seven well-being goals and five ways of working in the Well-being of Future Generations Act.
It is also essential to apply this systemic view to your Quality Management System (QMS) itself. It is helpful to conduct an initial assessment to identify system strengths and areas for improvement. Building a QMS takes time and it is important to continually identify ways to move forward on the journey.
Consider using the NHS Wales maturity matrix to assess your approach to quality management and help create a development plan. This can be used at any level of the organisation.
Create a system map. It will help you consider how work is enabled or constrained by organisational design and identify the connections and dependencies that support or inhibit work to meet citizen, stakeholder and staff needs.
The Quality as an Organisational Strategy approach recommends mapping your processes and categorising them as driver, mainstay or support processes. These are defined as:
Map your current quality activities to the QMS aspects (planning, control, improvement, assurance and the feedback system) and identify the gaps. Who do you need to link with to move things forward?