Purchasing quality: the South Lincolnshire approach

Describes the authority's strategy, recording system, visiting programme, and guide to monitoring. Describes four developments in detail which South Lincolnshire's review of its quality monitoring approach has stimulated. The strategy identifies three levels of monitoring activity: an overview, a means of identifying when closer monitoring is indicated, and causes for concern; a selective view, a means of assessing the severity of causes for concern; and an investigative view, to examine and identify solutions to confirmed problems. Explains how the strategy identifies corporate responsibility for quality monitoring, and how this may be achieved; how the "monitoring matrix" enables a comparative overview of each provider's compliance to purchaser standards. An up-to-date record of progress on individual standards is constantly available. Quality monitoring visiting can be hit or miss. The South Lincolnshire approach attempts to minimize this through the management of the visit and the use of a pocket guide to monitoring. The guide's objective is to provide a practical guide to monitoring. An attempt has also been made to unveil some of the mystique surrounding quality.