New guidance launches to enhance quality and improve patient experience in healthcare sector
9 October 2023 – Global guidance designed to improve the experience of patients by embedding high quality across healthcare has been published. The new code of practice, the first ever international consensus standard on healthcare quality, has been developed by BSI in recognition of the increasing demands on the NHS and healthcare sector globally to help increase the delivery of high-quality, patient-centric care.
With the UK healthcare sector facing pressures including the COVID-19 pandemic backlog, rising patient numbers, linked to an ageing population and complex disease profiles, the code of practice aims to provide a roadmap to help ensure treatment and care pathways are more efficient and ultimately improve outcomes for patients and healthcare professionals.
Applicable to all healthcare organizations, including the NHS and private providers of all sizes, Healthcare organization management – Management systems for quality in healthcare organizations and (BS ISO 7101:2023) has been published by BSI, the UK National Standards Body, and brings together agreed international best practice to present a quality template.
Its focus includes creating and maintaining processes that ensure timely, safe, effective, equitable, and people-centred care, helping organizations meet statutory and regulatory requirements, and ensuring there is the opportunity both to enhance the service user experience during care and to continually improve healthcare quality.
Rob Turpin, Head of Sector, Healthcare, BSI said: “This new framework is designed to provide a roadmap to drive up quality across the healthcare sector and ensure the delivery of patient-focused care that ultimately benefits us all across society. With the UK healthcare under significant pressure to manage challenges including an ageing population and the Covid backlog, this is an opportune moment for the sector to look at new strategies and approaches.
“This international management system standard captures, distills and spreads agreed international best practices and offers the potential to help organizations attract and retain staff in a people-centred health system, address risk and meet growing patient expectations and cope with increasing demand.”
Written by healthcare experts from 24 countries including the UK, and in collaboration with over 40 National Standard Bodies, it contains guidance and requirements designed to help healthcare organizations become more efficient, more sustainable and better able to comply with external legislation and regulation. It is designed to enable the development of a healthcare management system that can:
- deliver consistently higher-quality healthcare
- embed a culture of quality, starting with senior leaders
- systematically identify and address risk
- ensure greater patient and workforce well-being
- control service delivery closely
- monitor and evaluate performance
- drive continual improvements.
Although the Covid-19 pandemic shone a spotlight on the pressures facing the healthcare sector, appetite for a way to drive up quality in healthcare stems from before this point, with the need for this identified in 2018 in the Lancet’s Commission on High Quality Healthcare and the World Health Organization’s Handbook for national quality policy and strategy.
Majid Zahoor, Global Director, Healthcare Sector, BSI, added: “The healthcare quality management system focuses on improving a healthcare organization’s capability, resilience and outcomes through the improvement of its underlying management system. The standard prioritises the need to refocus on a patient-centred delivery framework, systematic management of clinical and non-clinical risk, and an emphasis on staff-centred training, well-being and professional development programs.”
