Quality of care

High-quality care can usually be defined in three parts: clinical effectiveness, safety and patient experience. We will be examining how NHS and social care organisations in England are improving quality and assessing their progress.

Overview

Related projects

Patient and Family-centred Care

Breaking new ground in improving the experience of hospital care for patients and their families, and the working lives of staff.

Patient experience

Patient experience means putting the patient and their experience at the heart of quality improvement. As well as our policy work on this vital measure of quality, we run a number of programmes that aim to improve patient experience in care environments.

See more related projects

The Francis Inquiry report

Anticipating the Francis Inquiry report

We analyse what the forthcoming recommendations might mean for the NHS, and what needs to change in the health system to protect patients.

Improving the quality of care for frail older people

Joanna Goodrich looks at the changes that can be made at all levels to significantly improve older people’s experience of care.

Reading Room & briefings

Want to know more?

For more resources on quality of care, including reading lists, database searches and useful web pages, visit our Reading Room.

Related briefings

See our briefings and responses on quality of care issues.

Featured publications

Developing supportive design for people with dementia The King’s Fund’s Enhancing the Healing Environment Programme 2009-2012

9 Jan 2013

Sarah Waller CBE

Abigail Masterson, Hedley Finn

Health policy under the coalition government A mid-term assessment

28 Nov 2012

Sarah Gregory, Anna Dixon, Chris Ham

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Blogs on quality of care

A matter of meaning

14 May 2013

Liz Saunders

Can we keep up with the demand for urgent and emergency care?

24 Apr 2013

Nigel Edwards

See more related blog posts

Relevant events

8 May 2013

Integrated care summit 2013

Venue:

The King's Fund

6 Nov 2013

Transforming patient experience Sixth annual conference

Venue:

The King's Fund, London, UK

See more related events

Relevant audio/video

Chris Naylor: volunteering in health and care

Michael West: developing cultures of high-quality care

Michael West

See more related audio/video

Useful articles

Are 'family and friends tests' useful: agree, disagree, neither, don’t know?

14 May 2013

Volunteers are a big local asset

14 Mar 2013

Richard Humphries

See more on this topic

Relevant press releases

Public satisfaction with the NHS stabilises after record fall

3 Apr 2013

The King's Fund's statement on the government's response to the Francis Inquiry report

26 Mar 2013

See more related press releases

Our work on this topic

Blog

Developing cultures of high-quality care: what do leaders have to do to get there?

8 Mar 2013

Katy Steward

Article

How do we put the compassion back into health care?

7 Mar 2013

Jocelyn Cornwell

Multimedia: Video

Michael West: developing cultures of high-quality care

7 Mar 2013

Michael West

Multimedia: Video

Robert Francis: lessons from Stafford

28 Feb 2013

Robert Francis

Multimedia: Slideshow

Rhona Flin: building a safety culture in the NHS

28 Feb 2013

Rhona Flin

Multimedia: Video

Panel session: responses to the Francis Inquiry report

28 Feb 2013

David Behan, Jill Maben, Harry Cayton, Ian Kennedy, Peter Walsh

Multimedia: Video

Daniel Poulter MP: the government's response to Francis

28 Feb 2013

Daniel Poulter

Blog

Letter to a friend, a non-executive director on the board of an NHS Foundation Trust

26 Feb 2013

Jocelyn Cornwell

Article

Implementing Francis: lessons from Patient and Family-centred Care

22 Feb 2013

Bev Fitzsimons

Article

What really matters in cancer?

21 Feb 2013

Jocelyn Cornwell , Arnie Purushotham, Catherine Burton, Derek Stewart, Richard Sullivan

Pages