Duty of Quality

The duty of quality means how the organisation, large or small, has a legal responsibility to work to try and improve the standard of services. The duty of quality applies to everything we do in NHS Wales, whether we work in clinical roles or non-clinical services. 

Good quality health care services are:

• safe
• provided at the right time
• effective
• well organised
• fair
• person centred

The duty of quality includes a requirement for us to publish information about the quality of the services we provide and commission on your behalf.

We publish this information in a number of ways:

• Our Board Meeting takes place in public. Presentations to our Board include our Integrated Performance Report which includes detailed information about the quality of the services we provide and commission. More information is available from the Monitoring our Performance section of our website (opens in new tab).
   
• Our Quality Safety and Experience Committee includes detailed scrutiny on behalf of the Board of issues such as quality performance measures. It also includes information about external reports and investigations into the quality and safety of our services. More information is available in our Committee Papers (opens in new tab).
   
• We are working as part of the all-Wales Nosocomial COVID-19 Programme. More information is available from our COVID-19 hospital review page (opens in new tab).

During 2024 we will also publish our first Annual Quality Report as part of the new Duty of Quality.

A short explainer video is available below to explain what the duty of quality means for all of us.

More information about the duty of quality, including the statutory guidance that the NHS is required to follow, is available from the Welsh Government website (opens in new tab).

National information about the quality of health services

Useful sources of national information about the quality of health services in Wales include:

• The StatsWales website (opens in new tab) which provides national statistics about NHS performance and activity.