The NELFT vision is that:
• QI becomes an integral part of everyone’s role ‘from board to ward’
• QI will be led from all levels of the organisation, addressing organisational priorities
• We will create a workforce of autonomous improvers
NELFT has taken numerous approaches towards making this vision a reality.
1. One important aspect of our approach is to have a consistent model - we advocate the use of the IHI (Institute for Healthcare Improvement) model for improvement with successive PDSA cycles – plan, do, study up, scaling up a small test of change into a sustainable improvement.
2. Another important aspect of our approach is the idea of addressing organisational priorities by empowering staff. We want staff to be creative and to come to us with their ideas. But we also need to be realistic about the current challenges we face in the NHS and our organisation is no different. So it’s about getting the balance between this – sometimes the organisation saying what needs to be done, but engaging teams with how to do it.
3. In the need to address organisational priorities it is important that we don’t lose the patient focus. Patients can often see exactly what needs to be improved in the system and involving them often stops us from focussing on the wrong things.
4. We want improvement to be seen as part of everyone’s role but also want to recognise that there is a methodology and skill. We want people to feel that there is a progression for them, as well as us trying to build capacity within the organisation. Through the combination of our various NQIP training programmes and support from the team, we can help grow and develop our staff.
5. We also want to ensure that we work with others – we don’t want to reinvent the wheel. We want to learn from what others have done but also want to share our learning.
Some of our partners include Carecity, UCLPartners, Anglia Ruskin HP, HEE NCEL QI Network, London QI Peer Support network, Q Community, MH Improve Network, SP Champions & UKIA.
We have seen some great success throughout our first year in our QI journey at NELFT and these are reflected in the picture below.