Director General foreword
July 2017
Constantly striving to provide the safest and highest quality care to our patients and the community is the core business of the WA health system – now and into the future.
Steadfastly maintaining and growing this focus is even more critical in times of system change. Indeed the safety and quality of our health services, and providing an environment where innovation in delivering world-class health care is promoted is fundamental to providing real value to the community and to providing a sustainable health system for future generations.
With this in mind I engaged Professor Hugo Mascie-Taylor, an internationally recognised expert with a distinguished background in clinical, regulatory and leadership roles to conduct a review of safety and quality in the WA health system.
It must be emphasised that this review was not a reaction to poor quality or major adverse events; it was a pro-active measure focused on the effectiveness of current system-wide arrangements, strategic priorities for safety and quality, and on areas for improvement and future development.
I specifically would like to highlight the key principles of clinical governance that the report is based on including:
- clear roles, responsibilities, accountabilities
- consistency of standards across the system at all levels
- a culture of openness and transparency; good performance management
- a willingness to benchmark and learn from both innovation and errors locally, nationally and internationally
- a lack of complacency
- fostering intellectual curiosity
- and a clear patient and community focus & from bedside to boardroom.
Following the release of this report, the Department of Health and our Health Service Providers will work together to ensure the opportunity of implementing these recommendations is taken. This will ensure the delivery of ongoing high quality and high value outcomes is our priority, that we continually strive to have a system that is "safer this year than it was last”, and that we overtly make this commitment to our patients, our staff and the Western Australian community.
Review of Safety and Quality in the WA health system - a strategy for continuous improvement. (PDF 623KB)