RCS and Quality Improvement

We consulted stakeholders and surveyed members to shape our quality improvement in surgery activity.

Stakeholders want the RCS to:

say publicly what quality is and how quality improvement in surgery can be integrated with quality assurance and audit;

promote, champion and raise awareness of the huge potential QI has for surgery;

provide strong leadership for QI in surgery so that people and teams feel able to learn quickly from mistakes and celebrate successes;

take a multi-professional approach to QI using engagement to overcome problems; 

take an integrated approach to building QI capacity and capability across surgery, so that it is built in a sustainable way;

facilitate national and local initiatives;

use the many excellent data sources available to surgery to drive QI;

not “reinvent the wheel” but build on the QI resources already available;

facilitate a network of those interested in QI in surgery building on those that exist;

offer advice and support to surgeons and other surgical care team members;

involve patients in the design and delivery of QI in surgery from the very start.

What are we doing?

We are committed to supporting surgeons and surgical care teams to improve the quality of patient care. We are:

creating this online hub of resources to support surgical teams to undertake QI projects;

promoting and raising awareness of quality improvement in surgery and the benefits it can deliver to patients and the surgical team;

spreading the reach of Chole-QuIC - our first quality improvement collaborative;

building evidence for quality improvement; working with partners to develop a sustainable network that supports quality improvement in surgery; testing the impact of our work.

In the future we will:

build on the success of Chole-QuIC and deliver a second quality improvement collaborative in a new surgical specialty;

develop learning materials for all members of the surgical team to improve quality improvement knowledge;

embed quality improvement within surgical training and curricula and support surgical trainers to develop QI skills and experience.