WMQRS Briefing – January 2011
Welcome to the ‘new look’ WMQRS Briefing! We will be producing these monthly from now on and emailing to WMQRS lead contacts in each organisation. Please do circulate to anyone with an interest in the work of WMQRS. In this issue:
Urgent Care, Critical Care, Stroke (acute phase) & TIA, and Vascular Services
Mental Health Services, Health Services for People with Learning Disabilities, Dementia Services and Care of Vulnerable Adults in Acute Hospitals
Quality Standards
Self-Assessment Forms
2011 Review Programme
Chief Executive / Executive Director Leads for Reviews
Reviewers
Frequently Asked Questions:
2012 and 2013 Review Programmes
CQC Regulatory Requirements Compliance
2011/12 Contracts
Call for Demonstrator Sites!
Calling All Chief Executives and Executive Directors!
Urgent Care, Critical Care, Stroke (acute phase) & TIA, and Vascular Services
Visits to all West Midlands health economies (except South Birmingham) have now been completed. Nine reports were completed before Christmas and the remaining seven will be signed off in January. Overview Reports which summarise the position across the West Midlands are being considered by the Steering Group for each programme. A ‘good practice sharing event’ for the urgent care programme was held on 5th November 2010. Presentations from this event can be accessed on Evaluation of this review programme will take place when all Overview Reports have been completed and disseminated.
Mental Health Services, Health Services for People with Learning Disabilities, Dementia Services and Care of Vulnerable Adults in Acute Hospitals
Quality Standards
Final Quality Standards for specialist mental health services, health services for people with learning disabilities and care of vulnerable adults in acute hospitals are now available. Draft primary care mental health and revised mental health commissioning Quality Standards have been circulated for comment – in response to the initial comments that primary care services should be included. Quality Standards for dementia services are also out for comment. All comments should be sent to y4th February. All Quality Standards are available on the WMQRS website
Self-Assessment Forms
Self-assessment forms for all of the finalised Quality Standards are available on the WMQRS website Do use these as part of preparations for the review visit.
2011 Review Programme
Dates for the 2011 review visits have been agreed with all health economies. These dates cover all programmes. Each individual service review is much shorter – usually one day for each service. Meetings are being held with each health economy to plan the visits and confirm the programme. A review process paper is available on the WMQRS website with queries about the 2011 review visits should contact Kevin Heffernan on or Sarah Broomhead on .
Health Economy / Visit dates 2011Dudley & Walsall / 9th, 10th, 11th,12th, 13th May
Coventry &Warwickshire / 14th,15th ,16th ,17th
21st, 22nd,23rd,24th June
Birmingham & Solihull / 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th
11th, 12th, 13th, 14th July
Herefordshire / 13th, 14th, 15th September
Worcestershire / 20th, 21st, 22nd & 23rd September
South Staffordshire & Shropshire / 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th
10th, 11th, 12th, 13th October
North Staffordshire / 18th, 19th, 20th October
Sandwell &Wolverhampton / 7th, 8t, 9th 10th &11th November
Chief Executive / Executive Director Leads for Reviews
Leading a review programme can be an exciting experience. Phil Milligan was Director of Operations at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust when he led a review visit. His reflections on this experience are given below: Calling All Chief Executives and Executive Directors! If you are interested in leading a review, please contact Jane Eminson on or 0788 413480.
Reviewers
We still need reviewers for the 2011 reviews. If you are interested, please contact WMQRS on 0121 507 2891 .
Frequently Asked Questions:
1 Why visit so many services at once?
- Service providers prefer more services to be reviewed at one visit rather than several small visits.
- Several of the meetings can cover all the services being reviewed, for example, meetings with senior managers, commissioners, governance leads and other ‘corporate’ departments.
- Better use is made of reviewers’ time – especially those reviewers whose expertise covers more than one pathway.
- It is easier to be flexible if services and the links between them are structured in different ways.
- Perhaps most importantly, we pick up the links between services and can really look at the pathway for service users and their carers. If you review services separately then you do not really cover these links – or you get only a one-sided view. This group of services have many links. For example, the reviews of ‘care of vulnerable adults in acute hospitals’ will look at care of patients with mental health problems, learning disabilities, dementia and others, rather than each of these being considered separately.
2Does this replace other assurance processes?
Yes. The West Midlands will not be repeating the Learning Disability SAF this year, unlike other regions. It also replaces the LIT review for care of people mental health problems. We also have agreed with the SHA that these visits will replace the adult self-guarding self-assessment for provider organisations.
3How can we make the reviews developmental and supportive?
The aim of the reviews is to help organisations to improve. The process paper includes guidance on how organisations can get the most out of the reviews.
2012 and 2013 Review Programmes
All NHS organisations have been asked to comment on the proposed priorities for 2012 and 2013 review programmes:
2012:Services for People with Long-Term Conditions
Further work is taking place to clarify the scope, including whether reviews covered particular long-term conditions (eg. diabetes, COPD, heart failure, frail elderly, musculo-skeletal) and / or generic teams, such as admission avoidance, ‘virtual wards’. The possibility of generic Quality Standards with a health economy choice of which particular services should be reviewed is also being considered.
2013:Urgent Care and Care of Critically Ill Children Re-Reviews
Re-reviews of urgent care services, including the management of trauma, are proposed along-side re-reviews of the care of critically ill children. Further work on the scope will be needed, for example, whether neuro-surgery and the care of the deteriorating patient should be included.
Comments on these proposals should be sent to by 8th March 2011.
CQC Regulatory Requirements Compliance
In the next few weeks WMQRS will be sending out reports mapping the 2010 review findings to the CQC Regulatory Requirements CQC. We are also planning, later, to provide this in an Excel format so that compliance can be updated and updated CQC reports produced easily.
2011/12 Contracts
Do include a requirement for working towards compliance with relevant WMQRS Quality Standards and participation in relevant review programmes in your 2011/12 contracts!
Call for Demonstrator Sites!
If any GP consortium, PCT or Trust would like to become a Demonstrator Site, showing how WMQRS Quality Standards and review programmes can be used to improve quality, please contact Jane Eminson or Sarah Broomhead: or .
Calling All Chief Executives and Executive Directors!
Phil Milligan’s reflections on leading a WMQRS review visit
“Why would I want to take part in a West Midlands Quality Review Service visit?” I asked myself. “Haven’t I got enough to do?” Having been the Executive Lead for a review in June, I’m glad that I decided that it was the right thing to do and I encourage you to do the same.
WMWRS has been set up to help organizations to continuously develop their clinical services, providing peer review guidance on gaps in key areas and support for change. For those that remember the Care of the Critically Ill Child peer reviews, it is a very similar approach. There is strong evidence that the Care of the Critically Ill Child reviews have led to improvements in the quality of services and the range of service provision.
So why take part as an Executive Lead? First, it will help you to get an understanding of the peer review approach, working alongside many colleagues who are giving up their time to help other hospitals and health communities to improve their services. The interest in the topics, the sense of enquiry and the energy to seeking evidence that standards were being met was impressive. People who had not met before work together to help others improve the care that patients will receive.
Then there is the knowledge of the standards that you will get, how well do you know what service you should be providing? How often are you able to reflect on the standards of patient care and how your role as a Chief Executive or Executive Director helps these standards to be met? Insight into the standards will help you to ask the right questions of your teams.
Finally, there is the there is your explicit commitment to working to improve standards. Patient safety is probably first in most Boards’ priorities. The WMQRS approach is all about patient safety and quality. So join in, lead a review, show the rest that your are really interested and open your mind to seeing how others provide great services.
West Midlands Quality Review Service Telephone: 0121 507 2891
Room 6, Ground Floor, Old Nurses Home, Sandwell General Hospital, Lyndon, West Bromwich, West Midlands, B71 4HJ