Psychological therapies and interventions - national implementation guide 2: delivery improvement tools

What is quality improvement

While the Health Foundation defines QI methodology as a technical approach (see link above), NHS Board Chairs set out a broader definition in their 2022 Reference Framework:

“In using a broad definition of ‘improvement, we recognise that there are a wide range of approaches that can lead to improvement in health and social care including (but not exclusively):

• advances in technology and psychosocial interventions
• developing the knowledge and skills of staff
• redesigning systems, services, and processes so they enable staff to reliably do the right thing, in the right way, every time
• developing the knowledge and skills of the general population to better manage their own health and wellbeing
• addressing wider environmental and societal issues which lead to poor health and wellbeing”

In Scotland, we define ‘the people closest to the issue’ to include individuals who need, access, and deliver services. Ensuring people who need but are not currently accessing services are involved is critical for addressing inequalities.

QI draws on a wide variety of approaches and methods. The approach across Scotland’s public services is underpinned by the following QI Journey framework. This also underpins all QI training curricula in Scotland.

Scotland’s QI work draws on a broad range of evidence-informed change methods and recognises the importance of both designing effective systems and processes and effectively engaging with people in the change process. The foundation of the Scottish QI Journey is the Model for Improvement as this provides individuals with the basic knowledge on how to improve and how to assess whether the changes they have made have led to an improvement. More recently the quality improvement work in Scotland has aligned with the Scottish Approach to Service Design recognising the vital contribution of service design methodologies to the work of improvement.

In planning for quality improvement work, it is helpful to think about what quality improvement capacity exists within local areas and how this can be best utilised to support you in your improvement plans. ‘The Readiness for Change Assessment’ listed below, will support you to think about this and help identify gaps.