The programme of independent, external peer reviews of the Island’s health services is set to resume this autumn.
The next phase of reviews will be split across two visits scheduled for October 2017 and February 2018. The West Midlands Quality Review Service (WMQRS) will again be carrying out the work, having been reappointed following a competitive tendering exercise. The reviews will examine a range of services – across mental healthcare, hospital care, and community healthcare – by assessing compliance with a number of quality standards.
Minister for Health and Social Care, Kate Beecroft MHK, welcomed the resumption of the peer review programme: “I have long been a proponent of independent reviews for the Island’s health services and so I am pleased to see the programme will continue later this year. Inviting an independent group of experts, from various fields, to take an impartial and expert look at the services we provide remains one of the best ways of securing an impartial assessment of the quality of healthcare delivered here in the Isle of Man.”
The Minister also reiterated her commitment to explore the prospect of an independent health regulator for the Island, saying that a number of options were being explored with a view to developing more detailed proposals.
The two forthcoming visits by the WMQRS are the final part of the revised and consolidated programme of reviews unveiled in July 2015. When the eighth and final review is published in the second half of 2018, it will mark five years since the external peer review programme was announced, back in 2013. This five year period will have seen a comprehensive and sustained quality review of the major components of the Island’s health care service, along with a number of changes and improvements to services.
The Minister added: “Once this programme of eight reviews is complete we will need to assess how we proceed with any outstanding recommendations and with future peer reviews, but I very much see this process becoming embedded and ‘the norm’ for health services in the Isle of Man. Standards and best practice are constantly evolving and we must always strive to achieve the best we can, continuing to champion quality improvement and making it part of the fabric of our health and social care system.”
