Defining Quality

Quality is a process of self-assessment, of continuous learning and improvement, aimed at providing the best possible services to your clients. It is about working towards achieving the overall aim of your organisation through the delivery of relevant, cost-effective, user-centred services.

Quality may be defined as “a service, delivered by competent personnel, which meets or exceeds customer expectations” (Kunst & Lemmink, Managing Service Quality, 1995). This highlights the importance of consulting with your service users about what they hope and expect from your organisation, and also of equipping your staff with the skills, knowledge and supervision that will enable them provide the best possible services.

Your approach to quality

Planning for quality requires commitment, and this is sometimes where organisations can trip up. The process of assessment can soon fall down the list of priorities due to a lack of resources, a change in management or if targets for improvement are unrealistic.

It is important that your approach to quality is not driven solely by external forces, such as an impending audit or the demands of your funders, otherwise it can become simply a box-ticking exercise and you can lose sight of its value.

A helpful starting point is to address your organisational aims and objectives. What are they? Are they realistic and relevant? How did you come up with them? Are they user-defined and focused? Do they need re-evaluating?

As ever, consulting and communicating with service users and staff are key to undertaking a useful quality assessment. The needs of your service users should directly inform your aims and objectives and the types of services that you provide, and as you assess your services you should always keep in mind the question: is this the best we can do for our service users?

Engaging with service users and staff is a fundamental part of the assessment process and any subsequent action plans that are developed. Through this consultation, the importance of the process can be more easily seen by all stakeholders, as it is not just a management exercise but a necessary approach to service improvement that should be embedded in the organisational structure.

If left to just one person, completing a comprehensive quality assessment can be time-consuming and a chore. It is also possible that, for example, a day centre manager may have a different view of the services that their organisation provides than a support worker or a service user, and so may miss the opportunity to identify gaps in service provision or develop plans for improvement. Quality assessments should therefore be integrated into staff meetings and service users given the opportunity to feed back their views about services, through regular meetings or forums, informal feedback via conversations with staff, or via questionnaires and surveys. In this way, completing a quality assessment should become a much more meaningful exercise and the action plans developed out of it will be more relevant to both your client group and your staff. Moreover, a regular programme of service review can help to motivate all those involved to work towards continuous service improvement.

Getting started and getting help

There are a number of quality systems available to help you guide your assessment or you can look at developing your own. The important thing is that you find one which is suited to the size and scope of organisation, and compatible with the financial and staffing resources at your disposal.

The off-the-shelf systems, including the Homeless Link Quality Toolkit, PQASSO and EFQM, involve a relatively small initial cost but the onus is on self-assessment and so you should be prepared to spend time on conducting thorough assessments. You may not receive a qualification, accreditation or certification by using these toolkits, but they can be highly effective in helping you to identify ways in which you can improve your organisation. They are used by a large number of, mainly small, organisations across the country and as such their use is likely to be acknowledged and approved by both existing and prospective funders as indicative of a desire to provide high quality services.

It is also possible to have an external assessment of your organisation conducted which may lead to recognised accreditation. Investors In People is an example of such a system. This may involve a larger financial outlay than an off-the-shelf system but can still be useful in helping to find gaps in your service provision and in developing organisational plans. Just as involving staff and service users in an assessment can help to give you a wide range of views about your organisation, so an external assessment can provide alternative perspectives of your services.

• Click here for a brief overview of some of the most popular quality toolkits available.

• Performance Hub has an online Quality Selector can also help you to choose a toolkit suitable to your organisation’s size and resources.

• The NCVO website has useful information about Quality Systems, including a number of case studies.

• Care Services Improvement Partnership has an online Directory of Service Improvement with detailed information on a range of methodologies, tools, techniques, exercises and networks.

What next?

A thorough quality assessment may identify significant need for improvement or change to your services, so organising your time and resources is important. When developing an action plan for improvement, you will need prioritise tasks. Consider which parts of the action plan are most important to work on first and also whether financial and staffing resources will allow you to implement the necessary changes, and set realistic timeframes. A well-structured and focussed action plan can itself help you when bidding for renewed or additional funding for your services.

Improvements to your services don't necessarily have to be developed from nothing. Homeless Link may be able to advise you, and we regularly hold conferences and events at which you can hear examples of how other organisations are run and share your own experiences and issues. There may also be other agencies in your area that are willing and able to help you with developing your policies and procedures. Indeed, regional benchmarking groups are a very useful way for organisations to discuss issues or concerns and to share best practice.

Homeless Link’s Innovations and Good Practice team can assist you in preparing for quality assessments and developing plans for service improvement. For more details, contact Richard Andrew, Innovations Project Officer, at richard.andrew@homelesslink.org.uk or on 020 7960 3014.

We may also be able to provide direct support to organisations using Homeless Link’s Quality Toolkit. Buy the toolkit

Thank you to Bob Porter at Canterbury City Council for kindly sharing their research project on continuous service improvement.