The new year is a great time to look back and look ahead. The Q team is doing just that, as we identify priorities for this year. Our evaluation of the 2022 in-person Leeds, Bristol and online Q community events is hot off the press: it’s an opportunity to share five key learning points from Q members, and set out what this suggests about your needs in 2023.

Your reasons for attending have changed

Our community event has been a staple in the calendar since Q began, but why do members attend?

In 2022, ‘learning from the work of other members’ was the single most common reason for members attending our online event (74% of attendees). This is a change from our 2020 event; you saw this primarily as an opportunity to re-energise, gain new inspiration and motivation by connecting to the community.

This begs the question: how do the ongoing pressures across health and care shape what members come to Q for? Is this shift dictated by time pressures and a need for you to be more intentional about how you use your time?

In any case, opportunities to learn from the work of other members will continue to form an important part of event content, along with opportunities to have conversations with each other.

You want both inspirational speakers and tangible takeaways

Looking at your feedback, it’s clear that the community event is still valued as a source of inspiration. This could be in the form of connecting, learning from the work of other members, or from notable external speakers. The benefit for participants could be about gaining new ideas, energy or motivation:

‘I found Mary Dixon-Woods’ talk an absolute inspiration from start to finish.’

Participant, online event

At the same time, we heard that you want learning and takeaways that are as tangible as possible, and that you can readily put into practice:

‘Having speakers[…]share their work/improvements in a tangible way so that you can take ideas back to your own stakeholders for further discussion’

Participant, online event

Again, we’re mindful that this need for more practical takeaways may reflect the wider challenges the sector is facing, and increasing pressure for services to do more with less.

We will be working even harder to provide a balance of these different benefits and ensure we provide members with content that is inspiring and can be applied to the ‘real world’.

We will use purposeful formats

For the first time, we ran both in-person and online community events in 2022. We wanted people to attend in the way that worked best for them and made them feel most comfortable, whether at an in-person Open Space, online or both.

In Leeds and Bristol, you told us how the in-person, Open Space format worked for you:

‘The format and pace meant lots of different yet not rushed purposeful conversations’

Participant, Leeds in-person event 

We heard that the Open Space’s value isn’t just in finding consensus, but in having exposure to different views, and having your own opinion challenged:

‘Asking people a question around aligning quality improvement and digital, and getting completely different views to what I would normally get’

Participant, Leeds in-person event

We heard that the online event had its own distinct energy, enabled by a range of mechanisms such as breakout groups, Q&As, and live polling:

‘The interactivity was great to make participation active rather than passive’

Participant, online event

The evaluation gave us further evidence that different formats have different strengths and suit different goals, and we are considering this learning as we plan events for 2023 and beyond.

Time is still the dominant currency

We know that a lack of time is still the biggest barrier to member attendance. The current pressures in the system mean members need to make careful decisions about the use of their time, and they also need to navigate an increasingly crowded field of conferences:

‘I was disappointed when I saw the agenda – I thought it was a long way to travel for a day of mostly Open Space and had I seen it before booking travel etc then I might not have signed up. But that would have been a mistake – it was a lot more rewarding than I have previously found Open Space sessions and I got a lot out of it’

Participant, Leeds in-person event

Sometimes it will be hard to know until you’re there, but we will work to continually improve the information we give you in advance, so you can make an informed decision about attending events or engaging in other Q projects.

You want to hear more diverse voices

There is a lot to celebrate about last year’s events, but it’s important to reflect on who wasn’t in the room, and again, what this may tell us about the context we’re operating in. Notably, clinicians were under-represented and, going forward, we will focus on how we can give them the most suitable options to participate.

This is part of a wider challenge, about how we can enable participation from all groups. This includes people representing a patient perspective, and those in education or in the third sector.

‘I would have liked to have heard more about patient engagement and patient involvement woven all the way through the event’

Participant, online event

As we move into 2023, we will be mindful of how we shape our offers so that our clear focus on health and care still allows those from other sectors to engage. In conclusion, as we look back and ahead, we’re listening and learning. We need to interpret what we’ve heard, and we won’t always get this right. We’re more likely to get this right with your feedback.

What is the Q community event to you, and what would you most like to see from community events – or from the rest of Q – in the year ahead? Tell us below.