Quality and Standards in Human Services in Ireland
Project Leader: Ms. Helen Johnston
The project is concerned with how regulation and standards can best contribute to good quality, continuously improving human services. The current public service reform programme (Transforming Public Services), along with the challenge of providing quality services with reduced resources in the current economic climate, has brought an increasing interest in standards, performance and accountability.
The project draws on theory and international evidence, along with an overview of developments in Ireland, to set out the different routes to quality across service sectors. This analysis seeks to explore the balance between encouraging self-monitoring and regulation and a more formal system of inspection and oversight, identifies the role of different parties (central government, regulators, service providers, service users), and outlines the merits of adopting a problem-solving approach whilst sharing the learning of what works.
The Project’s first publication is NESC Report No. 124 Quality and Standards in Human Services in Ireland: Overview of Concepts and Practice. To download the full report, the executive summary and press release, please click here.
The report provides a review of approaches to standards-setting and continuous improvement regimes: from a conceptual viewpoint, from international experience and from recent experience in Ireland. A number of key issues and ideas have emerged from the review, and these are informing subsequent reports (currently in preparation).
These reports will be published separately and will review the role of standards and quality improvement initiatives in a number of human services areas, specifically:
- Eldercare;
- End-of-Life Care;
- Disability;
- Schools; and
- Policing.
A Synthesis Report will draw together the conclusions from all of the reports.
