Measuring quality: an evaluation of a nurse-led stoma care outpatient clinic

Evaluation of health services has traditionally been based on medical outcome measures such as mortality, morbity and length of hospital stay. The government's recent introduction of the NHS outcomes framework has introduced patient experience and quality of life as essential metrics of quality care. Changing how we measure the quality of healthcare paves the way for nursing services to be recognised as providing high-quality care that directly impacts on the patient's experience and the outcomes of care. In this article, Theresa Bowles describes the development of a tool designed to measure the patient-perceived experience, quality of service and nursing outcomes of a nurse-led stoma care outpatient clinic at one NHS trust.