Advancing Quality: Total Quality Management in the National Health Service; The Practice of Quality

Advancing Quality: Total Quality Management in the National Health Service

Advancing Quality: Total Quality Management in the National Health Service

Richard Joss, Maurice Kogan Open University Press, £14.99, pp 215 ISBN 0 335 19395 1

The Practice of Quality

The Practice of Quality

Donald Irvine, Sally Irvine Radcliffe, £16.50, pp 206 ISBN 1 85775 073 X

Written from very different perspectives, these books come at a time when traditional paradigms of quality are being increasingly questioned. The Irvines' book is based on their extensive experience of working in primary care, while Joss and Kogan's more detailed research account analyses their three year study of a sample of the hospital and community services funded by the Department of Health to test the relevance of total quality management principles to health care.

Both books focus on the dynamic of improving health care rather than merely …