What is one of the aims for the National Framework for Public Health quality?

The "Framework for Improving Quality" resource has been developed to influence and guide our thinking, planning and delivery of care in our services. It is firmly orientated towards quality, safety and to improve patient experience and outcomes. The Framework provides a strategic approach to improving quality whether at the front-line, management, board or national level. It has a clear aim to foster a culture of quality that continuously seeks to provide safe, effective, person centred care across all services.

For front-line teams and improvement initiatives, the Framework acts as a reminder and sense check of the key areas that consistently require focus to ensure successful and sustainable improvements in the quality of care even in the busiest environments.

We all have a role and share responsibility for the safety and quality of health services delivered to patients and service users within our services. As healthcare staff involved in treating patients, managing and improving health services, you will understand the importance of providing the best care possible for all our patients.

This Framework document is the first part of the "Framework for Improving Quality" resource. It introduces the Framework and the drivers of quality that make up the Framework. It is a high level Framework that will require application at organisational level and with front-line wards, units and teams. The Quality Improvement Team will carry out information sessions over the coming months to raise awareness of the Framework across all service areas and will partner with front-line care teams to translate the Framework into useful actions to guide their work.

Work is due to commence within one hospital group, community healthcare organisation and the National Ambulance Service to translate the Framework in 2016/2017. This will be done on a phased basis with work commencing in the acute hospital sector.

Working with the healthcare system, the Framework will be applied and translated for organisational level and front-line teams to support its use and implementation. This will provide the detail of how each of these drivers translates within these levels and settings. The main purpose of this work will be to consolidate the learning and enhance the Framework for Improving Quality in part 2 of this resource. This information (Part 2 of the resource, being currently developed) will inform, support and guide organisations and teams in putting the Framework into action to foster a culture of quality care that continuously seeks to improve and inform their own specific action plans.

We do hope you will find "The Framework for Improving Quality" useful as you start your journey towards improving the quality, productivity and efficiency of services you provide.

Framework for Improving Quality in Our Health Service; Part 1: Introducing the Framework       

Executive Summary of the review of the application of the Framework for Improving Quality in our Health services: Learning to guide future approaches (Sept. 18)

Improving Quality at Mayo University Hospital: a whole hospital story (Sketchnote poster)

For more information on the drivers, please click on the links below: 

Leadership for Quality

Person and Family Engagement

Staff Engagement

Governance for Quality

Contact Details

Ms. Maria Lordan-Dunphy, Assistant National Director, National Quality Improvement Team, Tel. 01 6352570 

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A handful of analytic frameworks for quality assessment have guided measure development initiatives in the public and private sectors. One of the most influential is the framework put forth by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which includes the following six aims for the healthcare system.

• Safe: Avoiding harm to patients from the care that is intended to help them.
• Effective: Providing services based on scientific knowledge to all who could benefit and refraining from providing services to those not likely to benefit (avoiding underuse and misuse, respectively).
• Patient-centered: Providing care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs, and values and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions.
• Timely: Reducing waits and sometimes harmful delays for both those who receive and those who give care.
• Efficient: Avoiding waste, including waste of equipment, supplies, ideas, and energy.
• Equitable: Providing care that does not vary in quality because of personal characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and socioeconomic status.

Existing measures address some domains more extensively than others. The vast majority of measures assess effectiveness and safety. Some capture timeliness and patient-centeredness. Fewer measures focus on efficiency and equity of care, but attention to those domains has been growing.

Frameworks like the IOM domains also make it easier for consumers to grasp the meaning and relevance of quality measures. Studies have shown that providing consumers with a framework for understanding quality helps them value a broader range of quality indicators. For example, when consumers are given a brief, understandable explanation of safe, effective, and patient-centered care, they view all three categories as important. Further, when measures are grouped into user-friendly versions of those three IOM domains, consumers can see the meaning of the measures more clearly and understand how they relate to their own concerns about their care.

Learn more about Organizing Measures To Reduce Information Overload.

Learn more about selecting and reporting measures within categories that consumers understand: Organizing Measures by Quality Domain.

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