A wide range of healthcare improvement initiatives aims to tackle the shortcomings of health services, but they do not always work and sometimes create new problems. Claims to have improved service quality can be contested because people have different ideas about what counts as good quality, and some interpretations of quality fail to capture aspects of healthcare (including healthcare experiences) that matter to people.
The 鈥淏ut why is that better?鈥� project used the tools of applied philosophy to help deliver on the promise, and avoid the pitfalls of quality improvement in healthcare. It was funded by a Wellcome Trust Collaborative Award to Professor Alan Cribb (King鈥檚 College London) and Professor Vikki Entwistle. The project included interviews with QI leaders, collaborative working with QI partners, knowledge exchange events, and reflection on the methodological challenges of building applied philosophy into QI.
Most publications from the project are listed below. Our book, 鈥楻ethinking healthcare improvement: philosophy and ethics in practice鈥� will be published by Bloomsbury in June 2026.听
For more information please visit .
Contacts
- Vikki Entwistle; vikki.entwistle@abdn.ac.uk
Status
CompletedPublications
Mitchell P, Cribb A, Entwistle V, Crowe S, Utley M. Making ends meet: a conceptual and normative analysis of healthcare efficiency. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 2024; 34(1): 1-26.
Cribb A, Entwistle V, Mitchell P. Values and Ethics. [Part of series: Cambridge Elements: Improving Quality and Safety in Healthcare]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024.听
Entwistle VA, Cribb A, Mitchell P. Tackling disrespect: the importance of relational understandings of equality. Journal of Health Services Research and Policy, 2024; 29(1):42-50.听听
Entwistle VA, McCann S, Loh VWK, Tai ES, Tan WH, Yew TW. Implementing and evaluating care and support planning: a qualitative study of health professionals鈥� experiences in public polyclinics in Singapore. BMC Primary Care, 2023, 24: 212.
Mitchell P, Cribb C, Entwistle V. Truth and consequences. MetaPhilosophy, 2023,
Cribb A, Mitchell P, Entwistle V. Varieties of improvement expertise: knowledge and contestation in healthcare improvement. Sociology of Health and Illness 2023
Mitchell P, Cribb A, Entwistle V. A wide vocabulary for person-centred care.听 听Future Healthcare Journal, 2023; 10(1): 82-84.听
Mitchell P, Cribb A, Entwistle V. Patient safety and the question of dignitary harms. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 2023; 48(1): 33-49
Entwistle VA, Cribb A, Mitchell P, Walter S. Unifying and universalising Personalised Care? An analysis of a national curriculum with implications for policy and education relating to person-centredcare. Patient Education and Counseling 2022; 105(12): 3422-3428听
Mitchell P, Cribb A, Entwistle V. Vagueness and variety in person-centred care [version 1; peer review: 2 approved]. Wellcome Open Research 2022;7:170.
Cribb A, Entwistle V, Mitchell P. Talking it better: conversations and normative complexity in healthcare improvement. Medical Humanities, 2022; 48: 85-93.
Mitchell P, Cribb A, Entwistle V. Made to measure: the ethics of routine measurement for healthcare improvement. Health Care Analysis 2021; 29: 39-58.听
Mitchell P, Cribb A, Entwistle V, Singh G. Pushing poverty off limits: quality improvement and the architecture of healthcare values. BMC Medical Ethics, 2021; 22: 91. 听
Walker MJ, Rogers WA, Entwistle VA.听The ethical and epistemic roles of narrative in person-centred healthcare.听European Journal for Person Centred Healthcare. 2020; 8(3)
Cribb A, Mitchell P, Entwistle VA.听What does 鈥榪uality鈥� add? Towards an ethics of healthcare improvement.听Journal of Medical Ethics, 2020; 46(2):118-120. doi:10.1136/medethics-2019-105635
Mitchell P, Cribb A, Entwistle VA.听Defining what is good: pluralism and healthcare quality.听Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 2019; 29(4): 367-388.