The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has launched its Improving Quality in Liver Services (IQILS) accreditation scheme at an event in London. The RCP welcomed delegates from liver services across the country as they learned about the work of IQILS, hearing from speakers from the scheme and the British Liver Trust.
IQILS supports liver services in the UK to work towards accreditation, promoting enhanced care for patients and working to improve standards by measuring outputs against quality assurance benchmarks.
The IQILS scheme enables services to:
- adhere to professional standards of best practice
- identify practice which could be improved
- receive independent validation that they satisfy standards of quality.
The scheme follows on from the successful LiverQuEST pilot project, and has been named as a model example for improving standards for liver services in Public Health England’s 2nd Atlas of Variation in risk factors and healthcare for liver disease.
The Atlas of Variation showed that the rate of people dying early from liver disease in some parts of England is almost eight times higher than others.
Fourteen liver services have already signed up for the accreditation scheme within the first month.
James Ferguson, IQILS clinical lead, said:
It is hugely encouraging to see the scheme mentioned in the Atlas of Variation and to also see such enthusiasm and support for the scheme at our launch event from those in the sector.
As shown in the Atlas of Variation, there is an urgent need to improve the standard of care provided by liver services across the country. IQILS can help achieve this by measuring services against a quality assurance framework to improve the care patients receive irrespective of where they live.
It's important services provide patient-centred care, working to involve patients at every stage, so that the best quality of care is available for everybody.
