Safer Better Healthcare

Draft National Standards for Safer Better Healthcare

The need for an integrated, standards-driven, approach to quality and safety in healthcare has been widely accepted at both a national and international level.

The Draft National Standards for Safer Better Healthcare will provide the building blocks for such a system, creating a common understanding of quality and safety. The standards will also give healthcare providers a framework to continuously improve the safety and quality of services delivered.

5 things you need to know about the draft standards

The draft standards will:

• Create a common language to describe what safe, reliable, high quality healthcare service provision should look like.
• Set out what patients can expect from healthcare services.
• Enable all providers take responsibility for the quality and safety of the healthcare services they provide.
• Promote continual improvement in the safety and quality of care nationwide, and across all healthcare services.
• Build on established national initiatives for quality and safety.

The draft National Standards for Safer Better Healthcare have been developed by us with the input of patient representatives, experts and relevant stakeholders and are in keeping with the Authority's mandate under the Health Act 2007.

The draft standards will enable and support the implementation of national initiatives such as recommendations from the Commission on Patient Safety and Quality Assurance about quality and safety.  These include the implementation of evidence-based best practice, national clinical guidelines and clinical audit.