An Evaluation of The Health Foundation’s Engaging with Quality Initiative

Preface

The Health Foundation (THF) is an independent charity that aims to improve health and the quality of healthcare for people in the UK. It has a portfolio of activities including programmes to support leaders, to promote innovation, and to research and disseminate issues of high importance relating to the UK health system. In September 2004, THF launched the Engaging with Quality Initiative (EwQI) and, in Spring 2005, appointed a consortium of RAND Europe and the Health Economics Research Group (HERG) at Brunel University to provide the evaluation of the overall initiative. This evaluation began in July 2005 and the final report from the evaluation team is due in July 2009.

The initiative is inspired by the argument that clinicians are attentive to the need to improve quality in healthcare but are often not sufficiently or appropriately engaged in this process. The Initiative has funded eight projects, run by professional bodies, each of which involves clinicians in different ways in different approaches to quality improvement. By conducting, evaluating and communicating these initiatives, THF hopes to have a significant effect on quality in the UK healthcare system as a whole. The award holders are the Royal Colleges of Nursing, Midwives, Psychiatrists, Physicians of Edinburgh, and Physicians (who are hosting two projects), and Imperial College in collaboration with the Association of Coloproctologists.

All of the projects involve clinical areas where there is a gap between available evidence of good practice and actual practice. The projects include measures to narrow this gap and the collection of data on how successful this has been. They will all include a final report evaluating outcomes and the reasons for these, in addition to their regular self-evaluation reports.

To maintain clear lines of communication, the evaluation team is also expected to produce an annual report. This second annual report has been written on behalf of the evaluation team by Tom Ling of RAND Europe, with the involvement of the whole team in the drafting process.

RAND Europe is an independent, not-for-profit policy research organisation that serves the public interest by improving policy-making and informing public debate. This report is a working report, primarily for the benefit of THF, but it might also be of interest to those in and connected to the EwQI scheme. For more information about this publication, please contact:

Tom Ling
RAND Europe

• Email to a colleague
• Add to briefcase
• Print page