Whilst some of our Hampshire and Isle of Wight staff live on nice Islands on the South Coast, Quality Improvement (QI) should not be an island, working in isolation from other people in the organisation, disconnected from the people we serve.
Developing improvement cultures means us all believing in the potential for improvement and valuing each other in actively identifying and sustaining improvements.
Establishing cultures relies on shared values, reliable systems, networks, and relationships. This is not simple and takes time. Much of that time is spent building relationships, listening, and getting to know and appreciate each other.
Something we have worked hard on over the years are these networks. The Academy itself is a network of related workstreams where the staff, the people we work with and the topics we look at can move easily from one focus e.g. evidence or audit to another e.g. QI or Research. For example, one of our speech and language therapists started looking at the psychological needs of people with aphasia after stroke using evidence from the library, joined the co-production for improvement programme to learn from and involve patients and is now working on a researcher development programme project linking their personal development with the increasing scale of their project.
Across our organisation we have joined and created networks with key people in each of our service groups and the individual services within each of these. These networks are then supported by our Clinical Effectiveness leads and QI leaders. Other networks range from newly qualified preceptees and early career improvers through to advanced clinical practitioners and clinical academics. Maintaining relationships with these networks and the people in them is deliberate and planned but stimulating and fun with lots of learning on the way.
We have also learnt that by connecting our patient and public network to other networks our patient and public representatives learn more about our work and the people behind it whilst our staff networks are inspired and challenged to involve people and patients in their improvement initiatives. This is quite noticeable in our patient panel which you can read more about here.
As a community trust our network extends to other groups in the community which is why we are running a community peer improvement champions project (supported by the Health Foundation Q Exchange) itself an extension of an existing peer researcher initiative, which will see us training and supporting community leaders, third sector and public volunteers to deliver improvements in their own areas of activity.
One thing we often do in our networks is creatively plan for improvements, identifying the themes and topics that are important to all. Whilst we might be creating a list when we do this, at the same time we are deepening our understanding and respect for each other.
If you are thinking about building a network have a look at the Health Foundation’s report on effective networks for improvement which identifies 5 key features centred around a common purpose.
But, if you find yourself` on an Island, start off by getting into a boat and visiting your neighbours. As you get to know each other better, come up with a plan together to build a bridge. With good foundations bridges can last a long time.
Colin Barnes
Head of Improvement