Occasional Paper 10 - The Royal New Zealand College of General ...

2. Pat Snedden, Chair, MOH Quality Improvement Committee – key messages
The College is grateful to Pat Snedden, chair of the Ministry of Health’s Quality Improvement Committee, who
provided valuable comment and reflection during the symposium. Its role is to provide leadership on quality in the
NZ Health sector.
Main points:
• The QIC interest in primary health care is front line quality and the quality of the experience. Primary care has
been exempt from the attention that secondary care has received and recent concerns from NZ and Australia
highlight the need for attention. (NZ Health and Disability Commissioner – complaints system, ACC – harm
panel for serious and sentinel events)
• There is a need to establish a Quality Agenda and Framework for NZ Healthcare. The area of focus needs to be
on how to share information, and what information is needed to make progress.
• QIC believes people most at risk should get what they need and more analysis on inequalities is essential. It will
need to establish how to engage with communities to determine what should be measured and wish to develop
a continuing relationship.
• A relationship between QIC and the primary care sector is essential. QIC is responsible for providing oversight
to ensure the sector improves the patient journey and includes consumer participation in decision making,
keep people out of secondary care and manage primary care more effectively. It is interested in working with
the collective interests and establishing rules of engagement in dialogue that includes respect for all views but
also the ability to challenge if needed.
• Management of healthcare incidents is acknowledged as a problem area. QIC is interested in the overall management
of sentinel events and wish to begin an informed public debate that will identify a process to deal with
sentinel events and serious safety issues. Those who have been hurt will be recognised and professional
innovation will be highlighted. There is a commitment to honest dialogue.
“The QIC Goal for 2008 – how can we bring our mutual excellence to citizens of Aotearoa?”
* Mr Snedden is also chair of the Auckland District Health Board.
3. Key points: Development of a quality environment
for primary care in New Zealand
1. High level quality – culture of sector, what do we want the sector to do and why
There is a growing NZ quality network that is beginning to form in the primary care sector. This group is taking greater
interest, ownership and leadership of quality and there are now established relationships developing that are having
an impact on sector quality – professional organisations, funders, service providers, teams, patients and communities.
Sector quality will be successful if clinical governance relies on doctors being not only arbiter of quality but an essential
participant in the process. All primary care clinicians should have access to all the information required to best manage
patients; access to records, to secondary care management if appropriate, medication history, to diagnostics that help
© THE ROYAL NEW ZEALAND COLLEGE OF GENERAL PRACTITIONERS / Summary of Proceedings 2008 13