A five-year research programme investigating why certain types of Quality Improvement projects improve or worsen healthcare inequalities.
Every year, health care organisations across the country undertake thousands of projects to improve the quality of patient care; which we call Quality Improvement (QI). These Quality Improvement projects range from large national programmes to small initiatives led by staff in a single hospital ward or GP practice.
While there is not one definition of what quality of care means, most definitions include fairness. For example, good quality hospital care means that everyone should benefit equally from hospital treatment when they need it, regardless of their wealth, gender, age or ethnicity.
Healthcare inequalities are differences in healthcare experiences or outcomes across or between certain groups of patients, such as those on low incomes or belonging to a minority ethnic group. Quality Improvement projects have the potential to improve inequalities, but they can also make things worse. For example, NHS initiatives that encourage hospitals or GP surgeries to reach a particular target can mean that staff focus on easy to reach patients first to achieve that target, rather than disadvantaged groups.
This research programme aims to understand why certain types of Quality Improvement projects improve or worsen healthcare inequalities, and develop new training and resources in collaboration with patients and staff to help hospitals use Quality Improvement to address healthcare inequalities.
The programme brings together three separate research fields: health inequalities, Quality Improvement and co-production (developing a solution in collaboration with patients and staff).
The research programme has five phases:
Equal-QI phases graphic [PDF 165KB]
We believe this research will lead to a step-change in hospitals using QI projects to address healthcare inequalities and help staff to think about inequalities across all aspects of their work. Our findings and resources will be shared widely and in different ways so that other clinical and research teams can also benefit.
The research programme started in November 2022. It’s a five-year programme, ending May 2028.
Q Community (part of Health Foundation)
Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership
Royal College of Physicians
NHS Confederation
To find out more, please contact lead researcher, Dr John Ford: j.a.ford@qmul.ac.uk