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Penny Pereira, Q Managing Director and Q member Amar Shah, Chief Quality Officer at East London NHS Foundation Trust have set out how leaders can solve winter problems at pace, using tried and tested improvement methods.

Their long read, Six improvement lessons to apply as winter pressures bite has been published by NHS Confederation as NHS England released their latest A&E and waiting time performance figures.

Penny and Amar say:

‘The health sector is ramping up focus on certain parts of the system, with intense pressure to solve problems at pace. But experience tells us many short-term fixes we reach for in crisis create unintended consequences, and store up problems further down the line. The well-evidenced principles of systems thinking and improvement help address immediate pressures in a way that’s sustainable.’

Drawing on the pandemic experiences of the 5,000-strong Q community and the ongoing experience of East London NHS Foundation Trust, they lay out these six lessons:

Leaders need to ensure ‘top-down clarity and bottom-up agency’ in their organisation to support and empower people to solve problems together.
Teams can use improvement methods for rapid priority setting and problem solving.
There needs to be a practice of capturing, circulating and acting on emerging learning to keep teams on track.
An organisation’s response to winter pressures can be built around existing innovations.
Safety science can be used positively to manage risk.
Leaders need to recognise that staff engagement, morale and wellbeing is a critical foundation, especially in times of change and pressure.