Your new improvement podcast: Leading Improvement in Health and Care

This month we’ve launched a new podcast, Leading Improvement in Health and Care. 

It’s the latest part of Learning and Improving Across Systems, a partnership between the Health Foundation, NHS Confederation and the Q community to support health and care systems to learn and improve.

Co-hosted by Penny Pereira, Managing Director at Q and Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of NHS Confederation, this podcast is an exciting and important channel for thought leadership in our community.

Each episode spotlights people making changes across systems, as well as the challenges along the way. Joined by speakers from a variety of roles, we’ll explore the ways improvement can sustainably transform health and care.

We’ll hear practical stories of work people are doing in their area, on an issue of importance for the sector as a whole.

We kick off our first episode, Morale, by exploring staff engagement as the foundation for effective change. 

Annie Laverty, Director of Patient and Staff Experience at the Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, shares some of the incredible work that’s happened in Northumbria. She also provides her tips on robust, real-time measurement to understand and address what really matters to staff.

Then, John Drew, Director of Staff Engagement and Experience at NHS England, discusses using the NHS staff survey to steer improvement and how we might engage people better on productivity. You can listen to Morale on the link below. 

We’re inviting leaders from elsewhere in the sector to reflect on the example, with Matthew Taylor and myself making links to the wider context and evidence base for improvement.

We’re just finishing recording episode two that’s focusing on improving flow, particularly around the discharge process, with a spotlight on work in Cumbria and South Lancashire. 

In the series, we also plan to bring insights on improvement from the Confed Expo before we head to East London to focus on using improvement to address health inequities.

Our format the reflects the spirit of our partnership: building shared learning and inspiration in a way that’s grounded in the specifics of what’s happening locally and the reality of making change happen.

Whether you’ve been leading improvement work for years, or are curious about its relevance to your role, this podcast is for you. It’s also one to share with senior leaders and others in your system.

In this way, we’re helping to connect different parts and levels of the system and build the shared momentum behind improvement from within the sector that we believe is critical to finding sustainable solutions to the challenges we face.

Tune in and let us know what you think.