Quality and Safety Management System Review and Development Support for Gateway Residential Care

“I was very impressed with the support HCI offered Gateway Residential Care in the development of a Quality and Safety Management System. HCI showed great knowledge of our regulatory environment and a real commitment to improving the quality and safety of our services. We are very happy with HCI’s support and are confident that we have a best practice QSMS that will help us deliver a high-quality service to our young people.”

Kathryn Holly

Former Group CEO, Gateway Residential Care

Background

Gateway Residential Care (GRC) is a leading provider of children’s residential services operating across numerous locations in Ireland. GRC works in partnership with TUSLA and Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Trust, offering a range of child-centred residential services for children between 8-18 years who require out-of-home care. In line with their commitment to providing the best possible care, GRC requested HCI’s support in the review and development of a Quality and Safety Management System (QSMS) in line with SI 397 of 1996 Child Care (Standards in Children’s Residential Centres) Regulation 1996, and the HIQA National Standards for Children’s Residential Centres (2018).

Objectives

Examine GRC’s QSMS programme, structures, processes, information systems and outcome measurements that assure the quality and safety of care.
Make recommendations to support the development of an overarching QSMS for the organisation.
Support the development of structures and processes, incorporating best practice governance structures, quality and safety management policies and procedures and outcome measures.
Provide education and training to support the implementation of the defined quality and safety structures and processes.

Solution

To support Gateway Residential Care in the review and development of the Quality and Safety Management System, HCI provided the following services:

Development of Project Plan.

Detailed documentation review of the current QSMS.

Interviews with staff.

Review of the Information Management System.

Review and analysis of information gathered and development of report.

Presentation of Quality and Safety Review Report.

Development of Quality and Safety Governance Structures.

Development of Quality and Safety Management Policies and Procedures.

Education and training on quality processes.

Development of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Quality and Safety Report Template.

Challenges

GRC were transitioning to a new care framework.
Some processes were undefined such as policy and procedure development.
Lack of formal structure for communication of lessons learned.

Outcome

HCI provided Gateway Residential Care with a comprehensive Quality and Safety Report that detailed the findings and recommendations to support the development of an overarching QSMS. Following the report, HCI provided GRC with support in the development of a framework for Governance and Quality and Safety. This included the development of organisational charts, terms of reference for key teams, communication processes and a suite of key quality and safety management policies and procedures. To support the embedding of these redeveloped quality and safety structures and processes, HCI provided education and training sessions to GRC staff.

HCI also developed a suite of KPI’s which will be used by GRC to ensure that they are achieving their Quality and Safety objectives and providing the best support to their young people.

Benefits

Comprehensive and independent review of QSMS, carried out by regulatory, quality and safety experts.
Opportunity for GRC to review the governance structures currently in place and consider how they should be structured.
Expert follow up support in development of the recommended Governance structures and Quality and Safety Management System.
Clearly defined processes for key quality areas such as risk management, incident management, safeguarding, internal auditing and complaint management.
A strong evidence base for the policies and procedures is ensured through HCI’s dedicated Best Practice team.
Supports GRC in meeting regulatory requirements.
Improvement in the quality and safety of the service and care delivered to young people, building on Gateway Residential Care’s strong culture of person-centred care.
Promote learning across Gateway Residential Care services.
The defined Key Performance Indicators help to ensure the continuous improvement across all services.