The quality of care in hospitals

In recent years there has been an increase in the regulation of the medical profession. In the past there have been problems. The GMC can act only when things go seriously wrong. It has, however, introduced the health and performance procedures, increased the proportion of lay members, is working on revalidation and has introduced Good Medical Practice which makes very clear what is expected of a doctor and will be relevant to doctors' contracts. The medical Royal Colleges can be influential in raising general standards but the activities of the different colleges are not well co-ordinated and they cannot compel doctors to take part in continuing medical education, although this is an aim. Without statutory powers to introduce changes they have to carry their members with them. Audit has its problems and these are understandable because of the natural defensiveness which can occur if there is a threat of possible litigation. The Department of Health has had no proper system for measuring the quality of the care for which it is responsible and largely sees this as the responsibility of individual doctors. Responsibility for the quality of care is shared in a confusing way between different groups. But there is change in the air. There are moves for a 'patient led NHS'. The Government has a new emphasis on quality of care, there is greater sophistication in the methods used for surveying patients' experiences. Measurement of hard outcome data such as adjusted death rates can reveal underlying system failures. Finally, there is a growing realisation that within medicine, as within other complex organisations, doctors are not perfect and will always make errors. Blaming individuals will not in itself make much contribution to the improvement of the overall system: we have to work towards ways of reducing system failures.