Dorothy Gunne

The Quality Working Group has been working together for over three years. The group was originally set up to “investigate models of best practice, in order to develop measurable service quality standards at all levels (i.e. children, adults and staff), with an initial focus on co-operating on staff recruitment and harassment/abuse policies and procedures.”

Initially the Group worked on producing a document entitled “Child & Adult Protection-Statement of Policy Guidelines and Practice”.
Efforts since then have concentrated around a number of themes including:

• Capability building approach to service excellence amongst member organisations.
  
• Input into the National Standards for Disability Services being developed by the National Disability Authority.
  
• Early in its work, the group agreed that quality operates within an underlying ethos, which is common to all the members of the Association. The group further agreed that this ethos could be defined through a set of interlinked values and behaviours, which were defined as follows:
  
  Core values are seen by the group to comprise the beliefs of the NFPBA member organisations. In practice, the core values underlie the culture and ethos that drive each organisation as an independent service provider. They are:
  
  • Person Centered
  • Dignity and Respect
  • Accountability
  • Responsiveness
  • Participation and Collaboration
  • Continuous Improvement
  • Valuing Diversity

Behaviours evidence the fact that the individual core values are present within each organisation.

The Association is represented on the NDA Standards Committee by Niall Byrne of Cheshire Ireland and former Chair of the Quality Working Group. The working group has made a number of submissions to the NDA on their work, which are available on the Association’s website and several members took part in the pilots of the Standards. We would expect that the reflections of pilot participants would be incorporated in what emerges as the final standards.

A quality seminar was hosted in 2002 bringing the members of the Association together to look at the European Foundation for Quality Management Excellence Model (EFQM), where an EFQM award winner from Northern Ireland was invited to brief the Association on their journey to excellence. Since that time organisations are informally collaborating in relation to quality issues and are now about to look at the European Rehabilitation Quality Mark as a service improvement model for the sector.

This year the group will continue to work on progressing the service excellence agenda within the Association by maintaining input into the development of National Standards for Disability Services and by holding a number of seminars during the year on Service User Involvement and Health and Safety Compliance.
I would like to thank the past and existing working group members for their commitment and to acknowledge the input of all group members on our success to date.

Dorothy Gunne
Chairperson
NFPBA Quality Group