Tell us a little bit about yourself and your improvement journey.

I am a physiotherapist who has worked in the NHS since 2000, I trained in Bradford and settled in Leeds after qualifying. During my time working as a specialist neurological physiotherapist I developed an interest in improvement. I took any opportunity available to learn about different improvement methodologies but I struggled to find time to put it into practice.

In 2018 I was fortunate enough to secure a Clinical Leadership Fellow (CLF) post through Health Education England. It was during that year I really grasped what quality improvement is all about, partly through undertaking a Post Graduate Diploma in improvement and leadership but also through involvement in various improvement projects. One of the most valuable lessons I learnt during this time was the importance of patient and public involvement in QI. I try to ensure this underpins any improvement work I am involved in.

There are always opportunities for reflection and learning with any improvement work and my experience to date is that often it is the ones that do not succeed that provide the most insight

Following my CLF year, I moved into a role focussing on patient safety. Through this, I continued to be involved in Trust-wide improvement projects and participating in quality improvement collaboratives. Using this methodology I have been involved in a QI collaborative aiming to discharge patients earlier in the day and another to reduce the incidence of pressure ulcers.

I am currently involved in a project to reduce delays for patients throughout their pathway, from admission to discharge, using improvement methodology to achieve this. We are using patient stories to drive this improvement and have really seen the value in engaging patient representatives in this process. There are always opportunities for reflection and learning with any improvement work and my experience to date is that often it is the ones that do not succeed that provide the most insight. I am currently working in a quality role with a mixture of health care staff across a range of services including Clinical Psychology, Chaplaincy, Rehabilitation and five different Allied Health Professional Services. A key part of this role is using data to guide improvement and I am actively supporting teams to analyse data and develop their improvement projects.

What first attracted you to Q?

What attracted me to the Q community was the opportunity to network and learn and share ideas. As with much of health care, the value of collaboration in improvement is hugely beneficial and Q facilitates this.

Being part of Q provides an opportunity for me to develop and share my knowledge and skills which in turn will empower the teams I work with to be involved in, and lead improvement

There are many aspects of the process in QI that are similar to physiotherapy, such as the importance of setting an aim or goal, the logical steps needed to get there, and the requirement to measure progress along the way. I am passionate that every member of staff across health care has a role to play in improvement. Being part of Q provides an opportunity for me to develop and share my knowledge and skills which in turn will empower the teams I work with to be involved in, and lead improvement. Embedding QI across services ensures continuous improvement of the care we provide our patients.

What are you hoping to get out of Q?

I am hoping that being part of Q will provide an opportunity to meet other professionals who are passionate about improving patient care and services in health and social care. I would like to work with others in a collaborative way to share ideas and learn from different experiences. Promoting QI and sharing knowledge and skills with colleagues is a key part of my current role and I believe being an active part of Q will enable me to achieve this more successfully.