Creating order out of chaos: towards excellence in practice

In April 2005 the specialist palliative care team at North Tees, Teesside, became the first in the country to be accredited with the University of Teesside School of Health and Social Care award of Excellence in Practice. The Excellence in Practice Accreditation Scheme (EPAS) measures the standard of practice by providing objective data indicating the level of clinical excellence obtained by a team. This article gives the rationale behind the specialist palliative care team choosing to work towards achieving this award along with the key issues, which had to be addressed within the team. It may help other teams wishing to have some objective measure of their clinical and organizational performance to consider working towards EPAS. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.