Background The Directors of Care of eight south-west hospices identified a lack of consensus over measures that identify a hospice quality service. The Quality Leads of these services were asked to develop potential measures of quality and submit recommendations.

Aim To develop a set of metrics that reflects and measures quality identifying any potential learning (including in the narrative behind the figures) thus improving care provision.

Method A Quality Leads Forum was set up and developed a set of metrics that reflect and measure quality and identifies areas of learning: including topics such as falls, drug errors, themes from feedback and complaints.

Results We agreed to use the National Quality Board definition of quality as the framework for developing our metrics. It became clear that although hospices often measure similar things we do not always do so in the same way. In order to address the differences it is necessary to develop universal standards for each measure identified. Over the next 12 months we will develop standard measurements that will include: healed pressure injuries, the implementation of OACC, response to referrals and delayed discharges. Following this we plan to set up a process of peer review utilising these metrics.

Conclusions Although there are many differences in the services hospices provide and the standards they set, the development of this metrics so far would indicate that there are ways that we can work collaboratively in order to evidence the quality of the care we provide. A further unintentional benefit of the group/metrics is the ability to benchmark with peers and share learning/opportunities for service improvement projects as spin offs. We identified common challenges (e.g. transport) and now have a platform giving clear guidance on where to concentrate our improvement plans.