When done well, your SAR will accurately reflect your provision. We also see that the approach you take to self-assessment reflects the underlying culture of your organisation: its values, approach to continuous improvement, and commitment to fostering a learning environment.
Mesma CEO Lou Doyle delved into this during a workshop at a GMLPN provider network meeting. She offered a nuanced perspective on why the self-assessment process should be a central part of strategic development.
Mesma users will find a 15-minute recording of the session in Resources.
We extracted the following ideas from the recording to help you build a quality-first culture in your organisation.
There are two key ingredients. First, have we truly fostered behaviours that encourage both collective and individual self-reflection and continuous improvement? Second, are we offering honest, supportive feedback that enables everyone to enhance their practice?
Nine ideas to build a quality first culture.
- Clear Goals and Metrics: It’s important to ensure that organisational goals are directly linked to quality. It’s not just about meeting targets or recruitment numbers; it’s about demonstrating a true commitment to the quality of what we do. One tip is to take a quick look at your own website as though you’re an outsider—do your goals, vision, and values align with the way you actually operate?
- Support for Continuous Improvement: Building a culture of continuous improvement is critical. Consider whether you have developed processes that underpin a model of CI – don’t just assume it will happen.
- Whole-Organisation Approach: Understandably, quality is often focused on teaching and learning. However, there are advantages to be gained from applying structured improvement models across the entire organisation including, for example, professional services and business development.
- Creating Psychological Safety: Do staff feel safe to provide feedback and experiment with new ideas? You won’t know unless you ask. And even then, if people don’t feel comfortable saying what’s on their mind you may not get their true feelings.
- Cutting Through Bureaucracy: If the process of making changes feels too complicated, people will stop trying. While some decisions require careful oversight, we also need to foster autonomy and give people the agency to innovate and improve.
- Celebrate Successes: Improvement processes shouldn’t just focus on identifying problems. It’s important to celebrate successes—loudly and proudly. Recognising achievements is key to maintaining motivation and reinforcing a positive culture.
- Invest in Learning: How much are we investing in our staff? Beyond formal training, are we making room for self-directed learning opportunities, such as self-assessment, to encourage personal and professional growth?
- Seek to Understand, Not Just Evaluate: When approaching quality assurance, adopt a research mindset. It’s about understanding what’s working and what isn’t, rather than just ticking boxes or meeting benchmarks.
- Define What ‘Good’ Looks Like: Finally, we need to clearly define what good looks like within our own organisation. While regulatory standards are important, true excellence comes from having the confidence and clarity to set and maintain high internal standards.
These are just a few suggestions to help foster a quality-first culture where continuous improvement and collective accountability are deeply embedded in the organisation. We can help you to make it happen if you need support along the way.
Bonus suggestion
Our bonus tip is to consider if the systems and tools you are using to manage and oversee quality assurance and improvement support you to implement the ideas above.
The Mesma software platform was built with collaborative quality assurance and improvement practices in mind. You can find out more about Mesma here or book a demonstration of the software below.
