GEN23 Monitor your own work practices

Overview

This standard is about carrying out a review of your own practice.  It involves monitoring and evaluating the quality of your work activities and outcomes and taking appropriate actions to support continuous improvement. Monitoring and audit may be required for national, regional or local purposes. You need to show that you can apply relevant quality standards and procedures to your working practice and identify any deviations from these. You need to use a range of sources of information to support your monitoring activity including feedback from service users and work colleagues. You will report cases of non-compliance with quality standards and identify and use opportunities for quality improvement. Users of this standard will need to ensure that practice reflects up to date information and policies. Version No 1

Knowledge and Understanding

You will need to know and understand:

1. Your own level of competence, authority and knowledge base and your role and responsibilities within your work area
2. The purpose, method and requirements for monitoring your work activities and outcomes within your scope of practice
3. The statutory and professional standards and codes of practice for your area of work and how to interpret and apply these
4. The range of quality standards and procedures for your area of work and organisational policies and procedures for quality monitoring
5. The range of internal and external quality assurance systems relevant to your area of work and the expectations of your contributions to these
6. Factors which may influence the quality of your work activities and outcomes and how to recognise these
7. How deviations from agreed working procedures may influence the nature, quality or reliability of the outcomes achieved
8. Sources of information to support monitoring and evaluation of your work activities and outcomes and how to access these
9. The range of data relevant to the monitoring activity to be undertaken
10. How to identify and evaluate variances in working practice and outcomes
11. Actions you must take and timescales for doing this in cases of non-compliance or variance with quality standards how to access advice and support for quality improvement
12. The importance of recording information clearly, accurately and in a systematic manner
13. The information that is required for recording and reporting the results of monitoring activities
14. How long quality monitoring records must be retained and procedures for disposing of monitoring records
15. The current national legislation, guidelines, organisational policies and protocols which affect your work practice
16. The policies and guidance that clarify your scope of practice, quality systems, accountabilities and the working relationship between yourself and others

 

Performance Criteria

You must be able to do the following:

1. work within your level of competence, responsibility and accountability
2. allocate monitoring activities within your work at regular intervals consistent with legal, professional and organisational requirements
3. adjust the frequency of monitoring where necessary to ensure compliance with quality systems and whenever risks are identified
4. monitor your work activities and outcomes against the relevant quality indicators and standards
5. access information from appropriate sources as relevant to the monitoring activity
6. carry out all monitoring checks correctly and accurately
7. obtain the correct and complete data relevant to the monitoring activity
8. correctly identify any non-compliance or variance in work activities and outcomes against relevant quality indicators
9. report instances of non-compliance or variance with quality standards accurately and promptly to relevant people
10. use the monitoring results to improve your working practices and outcomes
11. access appropriate support to improve your practice where required
12. act on any recommendations to improve performance and quality outcomes
13. review any changes to working practices as required to confirm and sustain improvements
14. maintain clear, accurate and complete records of your monitoring activities and outcomes in line with current legislation, guidelines, local policy and protocols

 

Additional Information

This National Occupational Standard was developed by Skills for Health. This standard links with the following dimension within the NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework (October 2004): Dimension: Core 5 Quality