developments in health care and health service delivery at a national and international level. A number of key influences on quality, occurring both within the UK and at a wider international level, can be identified. These include: an increasing focus on patients and consumers of health care; a subsequent focus on the importance of multidisciplinary teams working together in a patient-focused way; and an increasing focus on implementing research into practice and ensuring that clinical practice is based on sound evidence.
In many ways the development of more locally-based, practitioner-led approaches to quality improvement enable the achievement of better multidisciplinary working and more patient-focused care, as illustrated by the previous example. However, in order to achieve the best possible outcomes of care for patients, it is essential that quality improvement activities are based on sound research evidence about clinical care, where such evidence exists. This is a major influence on current day quality assessment activities within the UK, which are increasingly taking place within the context of an agenda for evidence based health care (Muir Gray, 1997).
Evidence based health care
Many professional groups in health care are discussing problems and possible solutions to promoting the uptake of existing research evidence in practice. As we are all aware, completion of a research project and publication of a research report does not guarantee that the findings of that research will subsequently influence or change established clinical practice.
