Implementation Guide for Health, Mental Health and Social Care Services

Dear colleague,

We are pleased to inform you that the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) and the Mental Health Commission (MHC) have published a guide for people interested in or involved in using national standards, ‘How to Put National Standards into Practice: An Implementation Guide for Health, Mental Health and Social Care Services’.

The guide was developed collaboratively by HIQA, MHC and other key stakeholders from health, mental health and social care services. This guide supports staff at any stage along the journey of implementing national standards, whether getting ready for new national standards, or looking for an approach for identifying quality improvements to help services reach or maintain existing standards.

The guide is now available to download from the HIQA website and the MHC website. Alongside the guide, we have also published an infographic to show in a convenient and accessible way how the guide can support services to put national standards into practice.

We are keen to raise awareness of the guide and so we kindly ask that you share the guide with your colleagues, networks and other contacts who may be interested or involved in using national standards.

Additional guidance, tools, videos and booklets to support implementation of national standards, including online learning courses, can be found on the HIQA Learning Hub.

If you have any questions or require any further information, please contact the Standards Team at standards@hiqa.ie

Yours sincerely,

Dr Niamh O’Rourke

Head of Standards

Health Information and Quality Authority