Our history
The Improving Quality in Liver Service (IQILS) is an accreditation programme designed for Liver Services in the UK. The programme aims to improve the quality of care and provide assurance to Patients, Referrers and Commissioners about the service provided and run by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP). The programme evaluates the service against a set of standards, developed with multi-professional input. The IQILS accreditation process involves self and external peer assessment to evaluate the service against a set of standards to promote a culture of continuous quality improvement. The programme was launched in July 2017 by the Royal College of Physicians and is supported by the British Association for the Study of the Liver (BASL) and the British Society of Gastroenterologists (BSG) and also works in partnership with The Liver Community, Professional Bodies and other Patient groups.
Why does IQILS matter?
Accreditation has played an important role in driving change in many areas of Healthcare, including Mental Health and Diagnostics. Our aim is for the IQILS accreditation programme to promote similar improvement in the Liver Services. The Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) Chief Inspector of Hospitals has acknowledged that accreditation has a key part to play in hospital inspections and recognises the value of such programmes as information sources.
Recent evidence and the RCP’s experience in accreditation shows that participating:
- improves service delivery and quality of care for patients
- reduces variation in clinical services
- helps teams highlight and share good practice as well as where to focus their improvement efforts
- increases satisfaction with working conditions, leadership and accountability
- embeds quality improvement in everyday practice and supports teams to work collaboratively.