Duty of Quality

The duty of quality is in force from 1 April 2023.

It applies to NHS bodies in Wales. It also applies to Welsh Ministers in relation to their health functions.

It has two overarching aims:

• To improve the quality of health services
• To improve outcomes for people in Wales.

The duty of quality applies to everything we do in NHS Wales, whether we work in clinical roles or non-clinical services. 

We have a shared responsibility to achieve improved quality of services and outcomes for our population.

The Health and Care Quality Standards have been developed to help us embed the duty of quality in our work. The Health and Care Quality Standards are made up of six domains of quality and six quality enablers. 

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 in our Board Papers.
• Our Patient Experience, Quality and Safety Committee takes place in public. This committee includes detailed scrutiny on behalf of the Board of issues such as quality performance measures. More information is available in our Committee Papers.
• We publish information about external reports and investigations into the quality and safety of our services. More information is available from the Key Documents section of our website.
• We are working as part of the all-Wales Nosocomial COVID-19 Programme. More information is available from our Noscomial Review page.
• Surveillance reports on healthcare associated infections and antimicrobial prescribing are published on the Public Health Wales website at https://phw.nhs.wales/services-and-teams/harp/

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.

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 which provides national statistics about NHS Performance and Activity.