DISC > Quality Assurance
DISC is committed to the provision of high quality services. This can be demanding when providing complex services to people with diverse needs and in a variety of settings. DISC therefore uses a range of quality assurance strategies to ensure the quality of our services.
Where applicable, we use quality assurance systems which involve external inspection to give an independent perspective to our performance. A number of our services operate within the Adult Learning Inspectorate framework for example and we are similarly developing quality assurance frameworks in relation to drugs, independent living and community support.
Many of our services are measured externally by their achievement of measurable outputs and outcomes and all our services are rigorously monitored to ensure that performance targets are met. However for many of our service users, the distance they travel towards measured outcomes is the true indicator of whether they are making progress in improving their lives. We therefore place a great deal of emphasis on measuring 'distance travelled' within our work methodologies so that service users can assess their own progress.
The competence and skills of our staff are equally as important as the quality assurance framework we put in place. Our staff work with very deprived, demanding and often challenging service users in difficult settings. We therefore place a massive emphasis within the organisation on staff training and development and have recently altered our salary structure to reward staff who obtain additional qualifications and skills.