All together on the road to improvement

We use the terms ​‘peer learning’ and ​‘collaboration’ a lot in health, and there can be an overreliance on these words without really understanding their value. We can also overcomplicate how to apply these concepts operationally. 

Peer learning can be as simple as learning from a colleague. It might be an exchange of ideas to challenge your thinking or a fresh approach to a particular practice. 

Learning from a peer in another organisation is a great way to move beyond your organisational boundary and establish an informal learning practice at system-level. 

One thing that I have learned is that validation from your peers is important for those doing improvement work. This work involves reconsidering and confronting established ways of operating, and that means challenging colleagues to take a fresh approach. 

Validation in this context comes from seeking out evidence and information from the wider improvement community. This can be a good starting point for building trust with peers. Nurturing these kinds of connections with others as part of a piece of work can create its own kind of energy that endures beyond the improvement project. 

Our session, ​‘The role of networks, peer learning and collaboration in driving improvement’, is focused on learning about the different outcomes you can get from this approach and what enabling factors lead to successful networks. 

Speakers will share their thoughts on how peer collaboration can be used as part of an improvement approach in the implementation of the NHS 10 Year Health Plan. 

We welcome all those who are doing improvement work, part of existing networks and looking to get more out of them and people interested in learning about practical tools for creating a peer network. 

The session will offer people dedicated time and space to think and share ideas on how to create more value from being part of networks. We will look at different approaches and models for peer learning and collaboration that support the spread of improvement and practice. 

Building networks is hard work and sometimes people haven’t got the bandwidth during their week to think about how to do this. 

They may be a bit mystified by what is involved, or simply not feel confident about starting. Some people don’t realise that they are in fact already part of a learning network that they can build on. 

We have designed the session with these kinds of challenges in mind. 

Our aim is to give everyone at the session energy, momentum and evidence-based learning to take back to their day jobs. 

Q is a diverse community of thousands who work from the frontline of health and care to leadership. 

An organisation that has this level of energy, expertise and overarching infrastructure has a unique contribution to make to the health and care improvement network. 

In these uncertain times, with limited resources, Q is going to be vital to the spread of improvement we need to deliver the 10 Year Health Plan in a way that has impact and is sustainable. 

We know from the work we have done in partnership with NHS Confederation and The Health Foundation that peer learning supports improvement by nurturing a sense of belonging and reducing the sense of isolation that people can experience. 

Individuals benefit from seeing new ways of working, being validated in the path they are on, and building motivation and momentum to keep going. 

For leaders, peer learning networks can help with reaching the critical mass needed to spread ideas and shared approaches to improvement. 

These kinds of networks are key to generating the social energy and culture change that set the conditions for learning and improvement to flourish. They can lend a sense of common purpose to the mission for teams working across organisations and systems. 

Individuals involved in system-wide improvement projects can often find themselves needing to ask a lot of their colleagues at the start of a new project. 

For example, they may need to share resources between organisations – including things like performance data. 

Peer learning offers them a way to approach problems together, test their thinking, and create those trusting and supportive relationships which are so crucial to this work. 

At system level, networks built on strong, trusting professional connections in and beyond your own organisation can lead to a gradual culture shift. This happens particularly where a group of peers come together over their shared challenges for their communities. 

While we use words like ​‘collaboration’, and assume we know how to do it, when it comes to complex local or system-wide change, we really need a lot of different types of skills. This is particularly true for the work of Integrated Care Boards which draw in multiple organisations. 

I work in the Q Lab, where we actively cultivate spaces to work with people on tough health and care problems. We offer practical tools, support peer connections to help people understand and solve challenges. 

A common area we see people need support with, in their improvement work, is looking beyond one part of the patient pathway to understand the different ways a problem plays out. 

There is a need for a range of people from across a pathway to be involved to bring their perspectives and test assumptions. This might lead to a different starting point or idea to solve the challenge. 

Taking this at scale, when people try to tackle similar problems on their own – making sense of what to adapt for their own context – it’s no surprise progress can stall. 

What’s needed are spaces for peer learning and networks for people to learn from each other’s experience, sharing what works and collaborate at scale to unlock faster progress.