Quality Management Systems in health and care: learning from examples in the UK and Ireland

Find out more about Q’s work to provide a foundation for learning and collaboration around Quality Management Systems (QMS) in health and care across the UK and Ireland.

The delivery of high-quality health care requires a consistent and coordinated approach to managing quality across organisations, from frontline teams through to board level. Across the UK and Ireland, QMS have evolved to encompass broad approaches and aspirations to organisational performance that draw on improvement principles. While examples of embedded QMS in health and care are few in number in these countries, the management of quality is increasingly central to ambitions for how we sustainably improve health care for all.

About the insight project

In this project, we are using QMS to describe a range of ideas and activities that build on the founding concepts and terminology of QMS developed by Juran. This includes how these different functions are embedded within and across organisations, such as in systems, processes and infrastructure, as well as through culture, behaviours and leadership.

What we’re doing

This project will map the QMS landscape to provide an overview of the different language, conceptualisations, ambitions and differences across the UK and Ireland in this area. Through interviews with stakeholders with QMS experience and expertise, along with in-depth case studies, we are synthesising key learnings about embedding and sustaining QMS, examining the benefits, and providing recommendations to support senior leaders with this work.

The key questions guiding this work include:

  • What are the different ways to frame QMS?
  • What can we learn from QMS examples of different maturity levels and different journeys?
  • What are the conditions and enablers that support implementation of QMS?
  • What is the role of leadership, culture and behaviours in supporting QMS?
  • What are the potential and realised benefits of QMS within health care?
  • What is needed to progress QMS work?

Over the coming months, we will continue to update this page with insight as it is gathered and the project develops. You can also find other QMS work from Q in the righthand side menu.