Quality improvement

The Quality Improvement wheel for primary care illustrates the main elements to consider in design, delivery and evaluation of a QI project, acting as a guide to the stages involved. Hover over the different sections on the QI wheel below to see what each area is about.

1. Culture and context

'Culture and context' is at the centre of the wheel as without this element being keen to experiment, and supportive of trying something new, it will be hard for change to occur, or be sustained, regardless of what tools or methods you use.

Culture and context are the soil in which the intervention will germinate. The soil needs to be as favourable as possible to ensure the intervention is successful. Context is the local and national environment in which you operate. Culture covers your practice values, attitudes and ways of working, including your practice team, patients and stakeholders.

2. The QI Cycle

These are the implementation steps for a cycle of quality improvement. It is broken down into four steps. Consider each of the 4 steps as a way of framing the implementation of your QI project:

• Step 1: Diagnose – Assess the area of your practice or organisation that requires improvement, and generate some baseline data
• Step 2: Plan and test – Decide the aims, methods and monitoring of your change. You can also test your intervention in a graded fashion
• Step 3: Implement and embed – Make any successes part of your systems or processes
• Step 4: Sustain and spread – Consider how your aims or intervention can continue to be implemented on a larger scale, if appropriate, and how the conclusions can be made more widely available.

3. Patient involvement

Patients are part of your culture and context. Involving them in our QI work means we see our work through the eyes of the people who need our care. This helps us to design, implement and evaluate each individual quality improvement project. The position of the patient involvement ring indicates it acts as scaffolding, to support any QI project.

4. Engagement

Engagement represents all stakeholders relevant to your project. You will have internal stakeholders in your own practice and external stakeholders such as pharmacists, social care services, and health infrastructure bodies at the local and national level. In a similar way to patients, your stakeholder involvement can support the different stages of your QI project.

5. Improvement science

Improvement science is research to identify and demonstrate the best and most appropriate methods for improvement in the quality and safety of health services. Improvement science is the 'containing' ring because it is the big picture context for your QI work. Once you have made progress on your QI journey and have gained confidence using the approach explained in this guide, the Improvement science section signposts you to other improvement methodologies that you and your team may wish to explore.

Download RCGP Quick guide: The QI Wheel for Primary Care