How to Put National Standards into Practice: An Implementation Guide for Health, Mental Health and Social Care Services
There is a new practical guide available to support people working in health, mental health and social care services to implement national standards and drive quality improvements.
This guide, ‘How to Put National Standards into Practice: An Implementation Guide for Health, Mental Health and Social Care Services’, was developed by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) and the Mental Health Commission (MHC).
It aims to support staff along their journey to implement national standards – from getting ready for new national standards, to identifying opportunities to improve quality and safety in services in line with existing standards. Key features of the guide include:
- A self-appraisal tool to help staff discuss what national standards mean in their setting.
- An action plan template to help staff prepare a plan for implementing changes.
- A checklist to keep track of progress when implementing the steps outlined in the guide.
Implementing national standards
HIQA and the MHC encourage services to use this guide to reflect on and identify opportunities to improve the quality and safety of their service, using national standards as a resource for quality improvement.
National standards are a set of high-level outcomes that describe how services can achieve safe, quality, person-centred care and support. They are evidence based and informed by engaging with those who use and provide our health, mental health and social care services.
Making and sustaining changes to meet national standards requires a process that is systematic, collaborative and informative. This guide is designed to help staff to reflect on and plan quality improvements to implement these standards in their service. It encourages staff to work through this process at their own pace and to adapt the approach to fit their context.
The guide is available on both the HIQA website and the MHC website.
Additional guidance, tools, videos and booklets to support implementation of national standards, including online learning courses, can be found on the HIQA Learning Hub.
