What is the challenge your project is going to address and how does it connect to your chosen theme?

Building improvement capability across boundaries

From intelligence gained at Clinical Quality & Serious Incident Review Groups, it is apparent that there is considerable variance in how quality, safety and improvement is delivered and managed across the region, impacting on the equality and experience of care for our patients.

Specific variance being observed includes how organisations:

• Manage incidents, never events and complaints
• Engage, involve and empower patients and staff
• Focus on QI

This problem is not exclusive to Kent & Medway, with similar being stated elsewhere:

• Helen Hughes, CEO at Patient Safety Learning, says patient harm is a persistent problem as systems fail to learn from unsafe care and excellent care.
• Ted Baker, Chief Inspector at CQC says there are real and continuing risks to maintaining quality – and that many organisations have fallen short of achieving it.
• Jo Wookey, Prog Manager at KSS AHSN says organisations need to improve how they engage and involve patients in QI.

What does your project aim to achieve?

Our aim is to enable healthcare systems to collaborate and co-create high quality services that meet the need and expectations of patients.

Specific objectives include:

• Increased system-wide collaboration in Quality, Safety & Improvement (QSI)
• Standardisation of key metrics and reporting
• Greater patient, carer, service user and public involvement
• More engaged, empowered and enabled workforce in QSI
• Spread and adoption of QSI approaches
• Staff enabled to develop and deploy the skills, tools and knowledge to improve quality and safety

To assess impact, this project proposes to use data and measurement for improvement with learning being developed through the process of design and implementation, asking key stakeholders how the interventions can be made to work in their local context and what will consititute ‘success’.

We have an expectation this project will bring about significant cost improvements whilst also improving patient experience and outcomes with a comparatively small investment.

How will the project be delivered?

This project will be delivered in three parts:

• Part 1: Creation and delivery of a Quality, Safety and Improvement Awards
• Part 2: Coaching and supporting the spread and adoption of the award winning projects across the region
• Part 3: Focus on scaling the Awards model and the best projects to other regions / systems.

Kent & Medway CCGs’ Quality, Safety & Improvement teams have responsibility for monitoring and improving quality in our commissioned services. The core membership of the project team will consist of people from key roles within these teams, and will include (but not limited to) staff members with responsibility and special interest in key areas of quality and safety.

KSS AHSN colleagues will play a key role in delivery of Part 3, drawing on their skills and expertise in spread and adoption of innovation.

A comprehensive programme management approach will oversee the project and will include:

• Gantt Chart
• Governance structure
• Risk register
• Action log
• Stakeholder matrix
• Lesson log

What and how is your project going to share learning throughout?

At the heart of the campaign will be a comprehensive communications strategy.

There will be three themes threaded through the strategy:

Theme 1: About the improvement awards programme. Communicating the awards programme to get people engaged and think about applying. Predominantly targeted at staff across the K&M system.

Theme 2: About the projects submitted, particularly the award winners. Targeted at K&M and system and nationally

Theme 3: Learning from the programme to enable other areas to replicate a similar awards and improvement programme. Targeted at wider healthcare system.

The project will draw on project partners at KSS AHSN and K&M STP to utilise their expertise, particularly to support Theme 3.

There will also be a focus on utilising social media as part of the communicaitons strategy. The project will adopt a hastag  and utilise a Twitter account with regular improvement content being produced.

Communities of Practice will be established to enable partnership and collaboration.