This has been a month of mixed emotions for the Project Team.

It has been exciting revisiting interviews and seeing some of the Case Studies and Short Case Studies come to life.  Our Graphic Designer, Bron Somerset, has worked hard with us to create a style that is user friendly and showcases the stories being told. We are working hard with organisations to get the remainder signed off and ready to share, knowing the pressures they are under to deliver services.

We have shared our first Case Study on our website, something which involved learning new skills for some of us! You can have a look at it here: http://www.communityhospitals.org.uk/quality-improvement/case-studies.html

We are busy scheduling the rest, making sure organisations know when this will be happening and have a copy of the graphically designed work. We have had some lovely feedback from organisations who have received their final versions, including:

“The case studies are such a celebration of the work as a whole, they are a wonderful reminder of the importance of community hospitals and the role they played at this epic moment in time.”

We got some great feedback from QExchange when we submitted our final report. We feel very privileged and humbled to have been supported to do this work. The joy at delivering the outcomes is tinged with a little sadness that the project will be coming to an end over the coming months.

Members of the Project Team have been busy preparing a poster and presentation for the IFIC conference in Denmark next month. How exciting to see us on the programme for Day 2: https://abbey.eventsair.com/AbbeyEventApp/icic22/programme/Agenda

We have also been busy drafting an article for submission to BMJ Open Quality. More new skills gained for some of the team.

Our full report is underway. The learning we have collected on our Lessons Learned Log and Risk Register have been invaluable in this process.

Time to get everything done remains a challenge but seeing the outcomes of the project emerge is bringing excitement, joy, pride and a sense of “we did this!”

We have really enjoyed being able to develop Case Studies and Short Case Studies from the interviews we started almost a year ago. Revisiting the interviews, and in some cases the teams, has only strengthened our conviction that the work done in Community Hospitals deserves to be highlighted and shared.

Working with our Graphic Designer, Bron Somerset, and seeing the first Case Studies as they will be shared formally has been exciting. We wanted to ensure that the presentation did justice to the content and Bron has achieved this. As we progress the Case Studies and Short Case Studies we are reminded of the importance of Quality Assurance within our processes – this is important to ensure organisations and their stories are represented correctly and also our relationships with them.

Our refreshed and updated website has gone live (without any technical hitches) – seeing all of these strands of work start to come together is satisfying and will give us a great platform to share the learning from our project.

We were delighted to receive an email from the ICIC22 Scientific Committee telling us our abstract has been accepted to present as an Oral Presentation at the 22nd International Conference on Integrated Care (ICIC22), taking place from 22 – 25 May 2022 in Odense, Denmark. We are now busy compiling our poster to accompany the presentation.

It was great to put together our final report for QExchange – our learning logs were invaluable in contributing to this. While it was valuable to be able to reflect on the work we have done and fulfil the requirements for Q it does represent another milestone completed.

We had our first Community Hospital Special Interest Group discussion where 2 of our Case Studies were presented. The presentations were very well received and words like “inspirational” used to describe the work done in Community Hospitals. You can access the recording here: https://q.health.org.uk/event/how-have-community-hospitals-responded-to-covid-19-sharing-innovations-and-best-practice/?dm_i=501H,N6FU,54N52P,2TDNR,1

It has been a busy month but the joy in developing and sharing this work continues. Fundamentally, Community Hospitals are fab!

This month’s Project Group meeting felt a little different. The work is moving into a different phase and it is exciting to be starting to share the outputs.

We reviewed and finalised our report for Q – refining the work we have done into 3 pages was not an easy task but our brilliant Project Manager Trish was able to pull it together. Likewise, it was good to review our budget and finalise some details.

We have been fortunate to make contact with the wonderful Bron Somerset who will be doing the graphic design work on our Case Studies and Bitesize learning. We think we are almost there in terms of format. It did spark an interesting discussion about whether “Bitesize” is the best term, we are now mulling over different titles and know we have to make a swift decision to allow the design work to go ahead. We also had an opportunity to review the first draft of our updated website – it will make finding this work so much easier.

Our dissemination plan has been reviewed by the Advisory Group and we will have an opportunity to take further comments at the meeting next week. This is the last time they are currently scheduled to meet but we will talk to them about extending this period to support review of our full report.

Just Ideas are working on the content of the Case Studies and Bitesize learning and it is great to see the work coming together. Some of the Project Group have been undertaking producing these as well – great learning and allowed us to test out formats etc – all in PDSA cycle fashion of course!

We had an opportunity to review the abstract for a journal article on our project and refine how we will share the Case Studies and Bitesize Learning within the article.

Just Ideas have contributed to our Learning Log for a second time which is helpful and aids learning. Next month we will be discussing an end of project reflection for the Project Group – we think this would be a great way to close the learning loop.

We are fortunate to be able to have Ann Keen (RN NDN FQNI FRCN FAAN PGCEA Surrey) join the Advisory Group as a Professional Advisor. Ann is the current Nursing Advisor to Sir Keir Starmer – Leader of Her Majesty Opposition.

Planning for our SIG discussion on the 23rd February is well underway. Two of our case studies will be presented with opportunities for questions and discussion.

Case Study 1:  Jules Kerr

Jules will talk about his experience of setting up an Advanced Practice Team and Rapid Assessment unit during Covid. 

Case Study 2: Dr Adrian Baker

Adrian will talk about the steps taken early in the pandemic to keep everyone safe, and the benefits of local decision-making.

To join the discussion follow this link to register: https://q.health.org.uk/event/how-have-community-hospitals-responded-to-covid-19-sharing-innovations-and-best-practice/

It is great to have held our first Project Group Meeting of 2022.

We now have an established template for our Case Studies and Bite Size Learning and Just Ideas will be progressing these over the coming weeks. We have our first meeting planned with a designer and it will be great to have a vision of what the finished outputs from the project will look like. We have seen such richness in the interviews we have completed it will be great to share these with Community Hospitals and the wider health and social care system. The innovation, creativity, strength and resilience of Community Hospital Teams deserves to be recognised and appreciated.

We are actively planning a SIG Learning Event for Wednesday 23rd of February at 7pm and are looking forward to having an opportunity to discuss the emerging themes, case studies and overall learning.

Our dissemination plan is nearing completion and we will discuss it with our Advisory Group in February – it will then be time to start delivering it.

We have been taking stock of the positive impact of participating in the project – engagement with diverse groups, new connections to community hospitals and their teams, new followers on social media, new committee members and a lot of learning.

We are very aware of the impact that Omicron is having on Community Hospitals and Project Group members in terms of workloads and recognise that it may also impact on our timescales so are incredibly grateful for the support from QExchange and their flexible approach.

As a Project Group we remain as busy as ever and just as motivated to ensure that we shine a light on the work that has been and continues to be done in Community Hospitals.

We had a dynamic and interesting Advisory Group meeting last month. There was an interesting discussion on theoretical frameworks that could help with our report writing following sharing emerging themes. The support from this group has been incredible and the value they see in this project has been a real motivation for the Project Group. When we were considering setting the Advisory Group up back at the beginning of the project we aimed high in terms of membership and continue to be humbled by the fact they all said yes, the contribution they make during meetings and when contacted individually. The generosity of their time, experience and insight is highly valued by us.

This months Project Group meeting was a little different as we focused on refining the list of Case Studies and Bite Size Learning we will be sharing. There was such a rich list to review it was hard to remember that in the early days we were worried about engagement and having enough material. Listening back to the interviews and reading the notes I think we all feel in awe of the staff working in Community Hospitals across the United Kingdom for their commitment to patients, their communities and the needs of the wider health and care system. We now have a list that feels representative of the Community Hospitals and organisations we have engaged with and we are looking forward to working with Just Ideas to get these underway.

Moving into this phase of the project is making us focus more on our communication strategy and think about all the ways we can share the learning we have identified, raise the profile of Community Hospitals and the contribution they have made during Covid-19 and lay the foundations for others to learn from and use the work we have done. We have submitted an abstract to the International Foundation for Integrated Care 2022 conference as part of this strategy. Our next Project Group meeting will focus on refining and further developing our dissemination plans.

Time has been a challenge. 2 of us have started new roles or taken on additional work – as a group of volunteers there were always going to be times when this was less easy than others. Our motivation to deliver the project well and on time has never waned – hearing the experiences of Community Hospital teams keeps us focused and on track (one Project Group member joined the meeting from their hotel room in Barbados, now that is what we call commitment!).

Moving into a new phase of the project as a new year approaches has caused us to reflect and be very grateful for all of the support that is making the project possible. We are excited to see what 2022 brings.

Evaluation blog – Trish Jay

At the outset, the Community Hospital Association (CHA) Q Exchange Project had a clear aim of embedding Covid 16 positive impact changes through shared learning. As a project group of volunteers who have a keen interest community hospitals, we all had varying degrees of knowledge and understanding of Quality Improvement Methodology but what we were clear about was the importance of collating learning from community hospitals and then sharing this with others. We thought that there would be some interest from organisations who have community hospitals but were delighted with the positive engagement and reflection we have seen through our 30 interviews with 80 staff.

The outcome we were hoping for was sharing the learning, but we had not thought about how we were going to undertake the evaluation of the project. Thank goodness for the Q Exchange workshop on 24 June 2021, which I attended run by Emma Gibbard and her colleagues. Emma kindly re-ran the workshop for the Project Group so we could all learn and agree together our evaluation methodology.

We used the Theory of Change (ToC) approach and visually represented our ToC by working through a logic model together, looking at our inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes and impact on a jam board (which is our ‘go to’ document). It was amazing that we had not thought about all these elements until this meeting and the result was the development of a comprehensive evaluation plan with metrics, key to measuring the success of the project. For example, one of the outcomes was to raise the profile of community hospitals contributions during Covid but this seemed too hard to measure! Until we thought more broadly about the engagement in the project, the Community Hospital Association and CHA social media – when looking at these metrics we can see significant increases in engagement, followers, website interactions and a growth in CHA membership.

We also used the evaluation workshops to map stakeholders in the project and amazed ourselves at the range and diversity of these. This made us consider how we can share the important learning from community hospitals and that it needed to be in varying formats to meet our diverse audience needs. As a result, we reconsidered how to use the project funding to focus upon the various mechanisms to do this, including engaging media formats as well as stakeholder meetings in regions when this will be possible.

The Q Evaluation workshop was a gift, it enabled us to think more broadly about the project and its wider impact, how we could measure it and evaluate our success. The metrics on our evaluation plan will be collated again in January so we can include this and the project learning in our February 2022 Q Project report.

“It has been an absolute pleasure being a part of the CHA Q Exchange project. The passion, commitment and dedication the team have shown (and the number of volunteer hours) has been immense!  One of the tools we quickly introduced to this project was a lesson log.  This has been a powerful and simple way, much like a risk and issues register, of capturing lessons learnt and benefits (including a number of unintended ones!) the team had observed, reflected upon and discussed.  It has been a privileged for the Evaluation SIG to support these very important Q Exchange projects.  I am looking forward to seeing their learning, outcomes and future impact including the spread and adoption of good practice identified by the CHA Q exchange project!” Dr Emma Gibbard, Evaluation SIG Convener and Project Team Member

Thank you Q.

Trish Jay

Q Exchange Community Hospital Project Member

Community Hospital Association Committee Member

Really positive meeting with our Project Advisory Group tonight updating them on our progress and discussing emerging themes. We are really privileged that we have a group with such experience and knowledge who are generous in supporting this work.

It is hard to believe that we are into November already.

Some of our timelines for concluding interviews have moved slightly to support Community Hospitals to participate in what is a difficult time within the Health and Adult Care Systems. We want to be inclusive as possible and share their experiences.

The work to develop the themes is now well underway and it is humbling to see the breadth and depth of work that Community Hospitals have done and continue to do. There is some commonality but also pockets of difference which reflect the uniqueness of Community Hospitals within their overall systems. Distilling quotes from the interviews has reminded us of the power of storytelling and narrative.

We have started to refine our lists of potential case studies and bite size learning and are also giving thought to how we identify our 2021 CHA Innovation and Best Practice Award winners from these lists – it is great that we have so many to choose from.

Work will start shortly on developing some initial case studies and bite size learning to ensure we have the format right and can refine the process to make it easy for those we choose.

We have been reflecting on the work we have done so far and feel there is some real learning about the value of the early work we did to set up our governance and quality assurance processes – it was time well invested.

We continue to update our learning log – we add to it at each meeting and it is creating a contemporary reflection of our Q Exchange journey.

We are really impressed with the range of support Q Exchange has provided while allowing us the freedom to develop the project  – PDSA cycles in action!

We have been really fortunate to have a project group who are supportive of each other, this project has strengthened some of those relationships which is benefitting the CHA as well as the project.

Thinking about how we share our findings has made us think about how we engage those who we want to share them with, how we might test out our thoughts and the need to rebrand CHA to ensure we meet the needs of our members.

As we move towards the end of the year we are as excited as ever about the work we are doing.

October Update:

We are delighted to have had such excellent engagement from provider organisations across the UK, and we are reviewing the data from interviews so far. Strong themes have emerged, and are being reinforced by subsequent interviews.  We will be concluding interviews this month (October 2021).   We have sufficient data and we are conscious of the pressures on the NHS.

Themes for interviews – we are now further developing these in order to identify the Case Studies and Bitesize Learning we want to progress for sharing.

Reporting – it was great to receive positive feedback from QExchange regarding our September reporting against milestones and our revised budget – lots of change since the original submission. Our Lessons Learned Log has been invaluable for reporting. We now have information on the final report format for QExchange (SQUIRE new to us but we are really enjoying learning new things!) and we are scheduling developing it.

Project progression – we are on track to complete the planned work on time. Some really great discussions and learning about theme development, communication plans etc.

Sharing the learning – lots of thoughts and discussion about how we might produce a range of material that will be accessible but relevant to different parts of our audience from frontline staff to commissioners. This has had a positive knock on effect for the CHA as it has made us think about our image and how we engage more widely with different groups. It has also made us think about where we can get support and expertise. We really like the thought of using infographics for the Bitesize Learning (2 of us attended the recent Q sessions and loved participating but not sure we have the skills required) and may approach the Sketchnote SIG for support.

Lessons Learned Log – this and our Risk Log have been invaluable. It has been really helpful to look back and see the things we were worried about that never happened (what if we have no one to interview!) and also the things that we did not anticipate. For us, in any project in the future, this would be one of the key things to set up.

QExchange – the support from the team has been really impressive. The sessions provided have been really valuable.  We have benefited from one of the team attending all of the Action Learning Sets.

Workload – we have had lots of discussions about the amount of work the project has involved especially as we are volunteers in our CHA roles and all have day jobs. Despite the time required we are all so enthusiastic about the work, are coming away with more knowledge and skills than we had when we started and are really excited to be getting to the stage of extracting and sharing the learning.  Thanks QExchange for giving us this opportunity.

September 2021: Q Report against milestones

Our Q Exchange project continues to progress positively. We have been providing monthly updates on the Q Exchange Community Hospitals project page. This month we are providing a short update on the progress made against the original project timeline and how the outline plan for Q resources.

QI methodology has informed our project. we have applied this to our project, ensuring all risks and lessons learnt are logged at each monthly Project Team meeting.

You will see that some actions have been added, postponed or changed as we have implemented the project, as a result of PDSA cycles and lessons learnt reflection. We have been delighted at the engagement in the project we have had from community hospitals across the UK.

Project Plan Timeline

Date/Planned action/Update
30 Sept 2020
Case study identification commences
This started ready for the bid submission

30 Sept 2020
Co-design survey with providers and test feasibility of study
Completed

31 Jan 2021
Learning from case studies identified
Completed as per timescale

14 March 2021
Project Researcher role description completed
Completed as per timescale

31 March 2021
Advertise for Project Researcher if bid funding successful
Completed as per timescale

31 March 2021
Protocols for survey and interviews designed
Interview protocol completed. Decision was made not to complete the survey protocol until we had gained learning from the interviews.

A decision was then made at the Project Group 1.9.21 that due to positive engagement and richness of interview data a survey is not required.

30th April 2021
Q Community Hospital Special Interest Group established
Live from 10 March 2021. We have 21 members and we continue to encourage people to join via CHA newsletter, website and social media posts. We have very positive engagement through social media and people interacting with the CHA. No meetings have taken place but we are planning a participative event in the autumn.

30th April 2021
Advisory Steering and Project Group membership confirmed and meeting dates scheduled. Specific Terms of Reference agreed for the groups and meetings have been taking place monthly for Project Group and three monthly for the Advisory Group.

31 May 2021
Project Researcher engaged
Just Ideas engaged to support with the project.

30 Jun 2021
Design dissemination programme including sharing emerging findings throughout the study
Stakeholder mapping completed. Draft dissemination programme designed, which is constantly being updated.

30 Nov 2021
Surveys and interviews complete
UPDATE- date collection progressing well with very positive engagement from organisations with community hospitals:

·        12 Interviews have taken place with 10 organisations across UK. This covers 75 community hospitals in those organisations.

·     11 further interviews have been agreed and are being planned.

·     1 organisation have staff wanting to participate but awaiting organisational approval.

·     Contacted a further 18 organisations

Initial themes have been  reviewed which determined the interview protocol needed to be strengthened in some areas which has been completed in September 2021.

New activity

Oct 2021
Commence the sharing of initial themes and case studies

Initial themes shared with August 21 Advisory Group

Date changed

31 December 2021 Data Analysis complete with case studies identified

Jan/Feb 2022 Interpret and validate findings with members and steering group and finalise report with other dissemination of findings

Decision will be made whether a resurvey will take place, to assess sustainability in May 2022.

May 2022
Themes identified

30 Jun 2022
Resurvey sample to assess sustainability

30 Sep 2022
Analysis of data from resurvey

Additional activities

Date/Planned action/Update
Commenced in June 21
Develop and complete QI documented approach for the project – Completed 4.8.21

Commenced in July 21
Develop project evaluation plan and monitor agreed metrics every 2-3 months
Completed with first monitoring report 1.9.21

Commenced in June 21
Develop and complete stakeholder mapping and a plan for dissemination of learning
Stakeholder mapping completed in June, learning dissemination is planned and will be further developed through PDSA cycles

Commenced in March 21

Social media communication – Ongoing and gaining significant engagement

Commenced in August 21
Rebranding work Final draft of rebranding to enable increased engagement – Completed in September 21

Outline plan for Q resources

As the project has progressed, the Project Team have determined the importance of sharing the learning, as community hospitals have been very enthusiastic to engage and share their experiences and learning. This is reflected in the updated resource plan to spend resources on activities to enabling sharing across community hospitals.

Plan                                             Year 1                                       Year 2
Subcontracting                         15k committed                 3k planned Reduced to 1k
Activities to enable dissemination and sharing, including design of materials
5.8k                                    3.3k
Running costs                           0.7k                                    0.7k
Travel and subsistence           Not required now            0.5k
Total                                           24.5k                                  5.5k

We are amazed to find ourselves in August already.

July has been busy.

We have commenced working with Just Ideas – it has been great doing some joint interviews with them, learning together. They are now doing the majority of the interviews.

We are really fortunate to have Heather Penwarden https://q.health.org.uk/community/directory/heatherpenwarden/   take over as chair of the Advisory Group. Heather has such a wealth of knowledge, experience and passion for Community Hospitals and we are looking forward to her leadership of this group.

We have completed more interviews – the learning continues and each time we are humbled by the work that has been done across Community Hospitals during Covid-19.

We have started to think about templates for sharing the learning and Q Community have been very supportive with members of different Special Interest Groups sharing their templates and knowledge.

We were so fortunate to have  Emma Adams Generation Q Fellow attend our July Project Group – it was great to talk through our methodology, think about quality versus quantity and our evaluation. It also made us think about how we capture more explicitly the PDSA cycles we have completed.

As expected engagement has dipped slightly due to the increase in Covid-19 and subsequent system pressures and school holidays.

We have had some interesting discussions about how we can be as inclusive as possible of the broadest range of Community Hospitals models. We made it complex and then focused it back down on seeking engagement across a wide range of organisations based on geography, those that engage and as always personal connections. We will continue to review engagement as part of our Project Group meetings.

We have sent out our Feedback Survey to the first 10 organisations interviewed – Google Forms posed a few challenges (yet more learning!) but we are hopeful of a good response rate.

Looking back at our Learning Log has been helpful in seeing our journey so far – sometimes it is too easy to look at what is in front of you and not appreciate the learning so far.

We have learnt more about the IHI Model for Improvement (Institute for Healthcare Improvement), Appreciative Inquiry and Experience-based co-design which all inform our study.

The enthusiasm for the project continues –  what can we say – Community Hospitals are simply fantastic!

We have now completed 8 interviews and we continue to be overwhelmed by the enthusiasm for sharing the learning that has happened across Community Hospital during Covid.

We have had an amazing workshop with Emma Gibbard (Q member and Research Impact Manager, University of Bath) on evaluation – it has really helped us to think through and refine outputs, stakeholders and metrics – in hindsight doing this earlier might have saved us time as it would have helped clarify our processes and scoping.

Emma introduced us to Google Jamboard – the Project Group are now converts!

We have done our first follow up interview in relation to a potential case study.

We are identifying  potential case studies and nuggets of learning to be shared as well as emerging themes.

We have engaged Just Ideas as Project Researchers and are really  excited about the experience and different perspective they will bring. You can find out more about them here: https://just-ideas.co.uk/

We are adding in a questionnaire for the first 10 interviews to gain feedback on the interview process.

We are continually adding to our learning log and thinking about how we share this widely.

We are giving thought to our interim report for Q Exchange – so much to share and reflect upon.

We are celebrating the experience and knowledge our Advisory Group and Project Group members bring by sharing a synopsis of their biographies on social media over July.

As a Project Group we are learning lots about each other and developing new skills and knowledge.

We remain as enthusiastic as ever and feel more privileged than ever to be able to take this project forward.

If you want to find out more about the CHA follow this link to our website: http://www.communityhospitals.org.uk/

We have now completed 8 interviews and we continue to be overwhelmed by the enthusiasm for sharing the learning that has happened across Community Hospital during Covid.

We have had an amazing workshop with Emma Gibbard (Q member and Research Impact Manager, University of Bath) on evaluation – it has really helped us to think through and refine outputs, stakeholders and metrics – in hindsight doing this earlier might have saved us time as it would have helped clarify our processes and scoping.

Emma introduced us to Google Jamboard – the Project Group are now converts!

We have done our first follow up interview in relation to a potential case study.

We are identifying  potential case studies and nuggets of learning to be shared as well as emerging themes.

We have engaged Just Ideas as Project Researchers and are really  excited about the experience and different perspective they will bring. You can find out more about them here: https://just-ideas.co.uk/

We are adding in a questionnaire for the first 10 interviews to gain feedback on the interview process.

We are continually adding to our learning log and thinking about how we share this widely.

We are giving thought to our interim report for Q Exchange – so much to share and reflect upon.

We are celebrating the experience and knowledge our Advisory Group and Project Group members bring by sharing a synopsis of their biographies on social media over July.

As a Project Group we are learning lots about each other and developing new skills and knowledge.

We remain as enthusiastic as ever and feel more privileged than ever to be able to take this project forward.

If you want to find out more about the CHA follow this link to our website: http://www.communityhospitals.org.uk/

Once again we have had a busy few weeks.

We have interviewed and offered the Project Researcher role. Just Ideas will bring a range of different skills and knowledge once in place.

We have conducted another 2 interviews with a Community Hospital which is helping us to refine our processes. The richness of the data is confirming the value of doing this project. We have more planned across the coming weeks.

We have potentially identified our first in depth case study.

We continue to set up interviews with interested Trusts and have identified our next potential organisations to approach.

We continue to be overwhelmed with the enthusiasm from organisations we are engaging with.

We have completed our DIPA.

We have held our first Advisory Group – the quality of membership is inspiring (and everyone we asked said yes!). It was a productive meeting with lots of questions, healthy challenge, sharing of wisdom and resources and advice on how we could improve the processes and project.

Some project group members accessed the Q Evaluation Workshop which they found informative and inspirational.

We have agreed our project hashtag – #QICommunityHospitals

We are on or ahead of target with all our key milestones.

We are thinking about and discussing our evaluation and dissemination strategies in greater detail.

Our monthly Project Group Meetings continue and are as packed as ever.

As a group we continue to be very excited about this work. As volunteers within the CHA I think it is fair to say that we had underestimated the amount of work we needed to do but with each step we are gaining new skills and knowledge, learning more about all things QI and forging new relationships while continuing to be inspired by the work done in Community Hospitals.

We are so grateful for the opportunity to do this work.

What a packed Project Group meeting we had last week – 90 minutes of review, reflection, planning and discussion.

Interviews planned for our Project Researcher next week and questions drafted

Pilot interview conducted, the process was reviewed and additions made to Participant Information and Interview Schedule. Reflected that telling their story was cathartic for those involved.

First 10 organisations – we set ourselves a challenge to make contact with 10 organisations to test engagement and check our processes were correct and complete, positive engagement from all of them and they cover 3 of the 4 nations

The Advisory Group is complete following confirmation of Emma Adams and Roy Lilley (CHA Patron) as Professional Advisors.  We now have an excellent mix of experts including the voice of the patient and League of Friends. We have been humbled by the willingness of others to support and share knowledge. Our first Advisory Group meeting is later this month.

Our DPIA is underway.

Our Highlight report is ready for the Project Board this week.

We have had a really helpful discussion about QI methodology with Emma Adams and are working on this currently.

We are in the early stages of planning our first Community Hospitals Special Interest Group Forum.

We thought we were excited when we were awarded funding but as the weeks go by and the engagement and enthusiasm of participants and the project group grows we feel so privileged to be able to do this piece of work, ensure Community Hospitals are heard and the work they do valued and shared.

It was so exciting to meet the Q Exchange Team and some of the other 29 Award Winners at the welcome event on 23.3.21

The information on next steps and learning support was very welcome and we cannot wait to get the contracts signed and work fully underway.

While waiting for the formalities to be concluded we have already been busy. We have updated our Information Governance policy, drafted all of our project documents, started our project group meetings, invited our Advisory Steering Group members to join (and they said yes!), drafted our participant information and identified our first pilot site. Our request for quote for a Project Researcher is out and we have already had some interest (details are on our website below)

http://www.communityhospitals.org.uk/q-community.html

Our Community Hospitals Special Interest Group is live

https://q.health.org.uk/community/groups/community-hospitals/

We have also learnt a lot:

• Don’t underestimate the time the Q Exchange paperwork will take
• Using the skills within your team to the utmost is helpful, having an experienced clinician with strong project management skills on our team is invaluable
• Other people have been equally excited by our success and the project we will be undertaking and are happy to support – you just have to ask
• The Q Exchange Team are incredibly supportive and the wider Q Community have a broad range of skills and knowledge they are happy to share
• QI is such a good approach to sharing, learning and developing and sits neatly alongside the innovation and best practice values of the CHA
• Sunday is not a good day to be trying to identify a tax number!

If you want to know more about the Community Hospitals Association (CHA) head over to our website: http://www.communityhospitals.org.uk/index.html