Our new way of working

We have started our journey to improving patient care – the foundations have been put in place over recent months and now colleagues are able to get involved in this new way of working.

By shifting our focus to one where improving quality is at the heart of everything that we do, we can transform the care we provide for our communities, so that it is safer, effective and patient-centred. Not only will this benefit our patients, but improving care in this way will also empower staff to know that they have the influence and opportunity to make a real difference.

The recent restructuring of the organisation into a model of hospital leadership at each site enables us to be in the best placed position to implement meaningful improvement, as local leaders will play a vital role in creating a supportive environment to ensure that staff are able to develop solutions and deliver change more rapidly. We want to support frontline teams to deliver better and more effective services for our patients.

Sir David Dalton, Interim Chief Executive, said: “Establishing this new approach to leadership recognises that our frontline teams, those who are closest to delivering patient care, are best-placed to develop solutions and deliver the improvements that will make the most difference. We want to ensure that staff are empowered to deliver true change for the benefit of their patients and their teams.”

Patients will also be at the heart of our work - by listening to those who are using our services, we can better understand where our focus needs to be and respond to what matters to them.

Dame Elaine Inglesby, Interim Chief Nurse, said: “The key to improving care is ensuring our patients and their loved ones are central to decisions made around their care. By working collaboratively with our service users, and valuing their input, we in turn will improve safety, their experience of care and the effectiveness of care provided. A shared determination to make a difference is critical to our success.”

As well as encouraging change within individual areas, we will be taking an organisational-wide approach to tackling some of the biggest improvements that we need to make. This will be in the form of quality improvement collaboratives which bring together and utilise the knowledge of a range of people across LUHFT who are closest to the issue. These people will be key to identifying blockers, developing the solutions, making changes and embedding them. Other colleagues will be able to contribute ideas and suggestions through a series of online conversations, making it a wholeteam approach.

Professor John Brennan, Interim Medical Director, said: “We will know if we’ve got it right when staff feel like they can make a difference – when they can make suggestions or feel safe speaking up and raising concerns, knowing they will be listened to. If we always strive to get it right first time, and we learn from our mistakes, we will develop a sustained change that will be felt throughout the organisation.”

What is quality improvement?

Quality improvement (QI) aims to make a difference by improving the safety, effectiveness, and experience of care. It is the continual use of methods and actions to improve the quality of care and outcomes for patients, and develop a workforce that supports these as a matter of course in their day-to-day work. If we all continually strive to be better, through learning and refining what we do, we can drive the transformation of the services we deliver.

What are we trying to accomplish?

How will we know that a change is improvement?

What changes can we make that will result in improvement?

Get involved: Deteriorating Patient Collaborative

‘Deteriorating Patient’ has been chosen as the topic for our first QI collaborative event, as feedback from colleagues demonstrated that this is the Trust-wide issue that we need to tackle first and foremost. Our aim will be to improve the recognition of and response to deterioration.

This will be the first time that we will be bringing colleagues together to combine our knowledge, experience and combined focus to identify what needs to be improved and a plan for how we will fix it together.

Professor Chris Holcombe, Clinical Effectiveness Lead for QI, said: “We all come to work to do the best for our patients, to give the best care and outcomes possible. However, we can all remember those times when a patient rapidly deteriorated and either it hadn’t been identified early enough, or it wasn’t managed well. None of us wants this to happen to patients in our care.

“Between us, we have the answers – and through these collaborative events, together we can work out what prevents us from delivering the best care possible, and what needs to happen to create long lasting change.”

Further details on the launch of the deteriorating patient collaborative event and online conversations will be shared soon.