Building human resources capability in health care: a global analysis of best practice--Part I.

This paper is one of a series of three, covering very comprehensively human resource practices in a global and generic context. The series of papers presents practices which are directly of relevance to the health-care context, and which are based on proven, effective and pioneering approaches. The first paper covers practices based on British and European experiences, gathered from world-class organisations that have either been finalists or went on to win prestigious quality awards such as the British and European Quality Awards. The benchmarking analysis presented in this paper is based on the sub-criteria prescribed by the European Quality Awards Model, which include: how people resources are planned and improved; how the skills and capabilities of people are preserved and developed through recruitment, training and career progression; how people and teams agree targets and continuously review performance; how the involvement of everyone in continuous improvement is prompted and people empowered to take appropriate action; how effective top-down and bottom-up communication is achieved.