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

Our Primary Care services are under pressure. The revised GMS contract implementation will require many changes in how we currently work, who we treat and where people access their care. So there is a strong case for change. We have cluster quality leads who have been given a little time to work on improvements. We have QI skills here and there across Primary Care, and a great many innovators. So the energy and mindset is there to foster improvement.

What we don’t have is a means of capturing improvements and how they have been delivered, we don’t have a reliable means of sharing that knowledge across the system, and we don’t have a mechanism for bringing those leading the charge together to learn, or to support and inspire each other.

A neural network of QI for Primary Care would see an increase in knowledge sharing across the system and a greater number of QI projects being undertaken, with Primary Care colleagues feeling more supported and more confident to get involved in QI.

What does your project aim to achieve?

1. Increased knowledge sharing. Measured by participation in Twitterchats, attendance at learning sessions, number of projects published.

2. Increased innovation. Measured by number of projects underway and completed.

3. Increased confidence in and support for QI. Measured by practitioner self-reported levels of confidence and perceptions of how well supported their efforts are.

How will the project be delivered?

There is already provision within the GMS contract to support QI. That will be the foundation. This project will augment that arrangement through the provision of:

1. an online local platform to link resources, QI materials and guidance for practitioners, alongside the means to be able to gather and publish projects as they are undertaken.

2. A network manager to convene key meetings, communications to support learning and represent the network in other fora.

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

The network manager will:

1. Apply for Q and will link in with existing SIGs and others to share how the network is learning and growing.

2. Link into other clusters of improvers across our health and social care system to ensure that it links in with existing and other improvement infrastructure locally.