We were awarded the Quality For Health (Foundation Level) in June 2018 and are very proud of this achievement so we’d like to explain a bit more about it as follows:
Quality For Health – What is it?
Quality For Health is a quality assurance system for groups and organisations delivering health and wellbeing services enabling them to demonstrate the quality of what they do and how they do it.
Originally developed in partnership with Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group, Quality For Health was set up to support the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector to demonstrate the quality of their services. Since then, the award has continued to develop and expand and is now being used across a variety of sectors and locations in the UK to provide assurance to service users, funders and referrers that services are of the highest quality. Groups with Quality For Health show their commitment to continuous improvement and putting service users at the centre of their services. The evidence gathering stage of Quality For Health also helps identify potential improvements to the organisation’s service delivery that they can address as they work towards achieving the award e.g reviewing their own processes. Quality for Health has three levels designed to support organisations – from small community based groups (like Memory Lane Cafe Calderdale) up to very large commercial organisations.
What does Quality For Health measure?
Quality For Health measures nine quality areas in an organisation:-
- Service User Experience – how do we look after and serve our members?
- Safety and Safeguarding – how we keep our members safe?
- Effectiveness– are we creating positive health outcomes for our members?
- Health Promotion – are we encouraging people to live well?
- Equality and Diversity – are we open and supportive to all?
- Leadership and Management – how is the organisation managed and led?
- Governance – do we act responsibly and legally in what we do?
- Outcomes and Impact – what benefits do we bring to our members?
- Connectivity – how well do we work together with other organisations?
Within each of these nine quality areas, there are a number of indicators measured through outcome-based evidence. The system also covers the three pillars of quality identified in the 2014 NHS Five Year Forward View (Patient Experience, Patient Safety, and Effectiveness) together with the five key questions posed by the Care Quality Commission (Is the organisation safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led?).[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
What did we have to do to get the Award?
We had 12 months in which to show that we meet a wide range of indicators for each of the nine quality areas and, crucially, to provide evidence to demonstrate this. We then underwent a two-stage external assessment . The first part was a desk-top evaluation of all the evidence that we’d provided. Following this, an assessor visited us at a cafe (Halifax cafe on 6th June 2018) to see what we actually do and to talk with members of our committee, our volunteers and our cafe members.
We formally received our Quality For Health award (valid until June 2020) from Dipika Kaushal (Chief Executive Officer of Voluntary Action Calderdale) at our Halifax cafe on 4th July 2018.
Memory Lane Cafe 