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The quality issue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Roy McClelland*
Affiliation:
The Queen's University of Belfast, The Whitla Medical Building, Lisburn Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland BT9 7BL
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“It is essential that discussion about the quality and effectiveness of care are reintroduced into the centre of the debate as they are, in the end, the more important dimensions of NHS performance” (Maxwell, 1984).

While the term quality is not much used explicitly in clinical medicine in general and mental health services in particular, quality is implicit in much that guides us. Indeed it is at the very foundations of our health care practice – the ethical codes with their emphasis on beneficence, non-malevolence, respect for autonomy, justice and fairness.

Type
The times
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1992

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