Achieving High Quality Care: Practical Experience from NICE

Drawing on the experience of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), Achieving High Quality Care is a practical guide on how to recognise and implement high quality evidence and guidance. This new title provides an overview of the evidence behind successful initiatives designed to change practice and improve the quality of health care. It provides an overall picture of change management, from understanding the barriers to change to how these barriers can best be overcome. It presents a concise summary of the evidence for change, plus examples of specific initiatives drawn from experience of putting NICE guidance into practice. The book includes a wide range of examples of positive change – plus key practical points highlighted throughout the text – to help readers achieve improvements in patient care. Finally, it shows how to measure change, assess improvement to agreed standards and to manage the ongoing process of change towards improving health care. Achieving High Quality Care is a helpful guide for busy health care professionals wanting to improve services and patient care. It is relevant to everyone involved in the organisation and provision of quality health care, including clinicians and health care managers, who are trying to lead change and improve care through implementing evidence–based guidance.

1 Introduction Gillian Leng Example in practice: Using clinical leaders to improve patient care 2 Practical actions for healthcare providers Val Moore Example in practice: A hospital wide approach to reduce mortality among acutely ill patients  3. Identifying a high quality evidence base Paul Chrisp and Sara Twaddle Example in practice: Finding a way through guidance on pre–hospital care across South West England 4.  Key challenges to implementation and effective interventions Elaine Whitby and Julie Royce Example in practice: Changing behaviour in primary care to improve the management of children with feverish illness 5. Using financial systems to support improved care Jennifer Field Example in practice: Building a business case: To redesign diabetes services 6 Using measurement to support change and improvements in healthcare Nick Baillie Example in Practice: Setting up a service for peripheral arterial disease in the North East of England 7. Chapter 7: Conclusion and reflections Danny Keenan and Sasha Abraham

Gillian Leng, Deputy Chief Executive, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, London, UK; Visiting Professor, King’s College London, Division of Health and Social Research, London, UK Val Moore, Implementation Programme Director, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, London, UK Sasha Abraham, General Practitioner, Tower Hamlets, London, UK