What is the positive change that has emerged through new collaborations or partnerships during Covid-19 that your project is going to embed?

It is widely acknowledged that in 2020 healthcare systems underwent significant changes with many innovative practices and accelerated improvement work. This project will gather together twelve people and their stories from the West of England in a celebratory podcast series which highlights how change was achieved and links to resources (tools and events) on the AHSN Academy website. This podcast series will build on collaborations established by the AHSN Academy team during the Summer of 2020 when training was adapted for virtual delivery. By it’s nature, the online training attracted and could cater for a diverse group of delegates (roles, seniority, geography and experience of improvement and innovation). This diverse audience appreciated accessing innovation and improvement training. This podcast series will be promoted to this audience and marketing consultants will help to expand our reach further. Ultimately with the goal of improving accessibility to training and resources for all healthcare staff.

What does your project aim to achieve?

Our podcast series aims to achieve two broad objectives. Firstly, we aim to celebrate individuals within the West of England, by sharing stories from a diverse group of practitioners (role, seniority, race, gender) and in doing so contribute to the work of the AHSN in supporting the Bristol Equality Charter. We aim to support the spread of improvement and innovation work throughout an organisation at all levels. Secondly, we aim to provide a vehicle for learning which complements auditory learning styles, a learning style which can be overlooked when developing resources. By delivering inspiring stories which outline the improvement or innovation resources that were used, we hope to motivate and engage others with their own change programmes. As this learning won’t be via a screen we hope listeners will take a break from their computers, maybe going for a walk or changing their scenery, promoting health and wellbeing.

How will the project be delivered?

The AHSN Academy colleagues will be the delivery team for this project, supported by a comms colleague and external marketing consultant. The team are experienced at producing online resources and working collaboratively with their comms colleague to promote and brand their products. The AHSN comms team have effective channels into the local healthcare system to promote resources to engaged practitioners. The marketing consultant will broaden this current reach to promote the podcast series to organisations and demographics which aren’t currently optimised. Progress will be tracked on project management software Verto and reported on internally. Verto and internal governance routes will ensure risks are managed. This project will sit within the suite of Academy resources under development. Impact will be measured indirectly by tracking engagement via downloads of podcasts and resources, ultimately an increase in the diversity of the Academy audience and range of improvement projects being undertaken is the goal.

How is your project going to share learning?

The podcast series is ideally positioned to spread learning from change programmes across the Q Community as each podcast will be freely available from an online library (such as Soundcloud) and accessible by anyone. Each podcast will highlight individual learning about using improvement and innovation tools. The project delivery team will share their learning by inputting to the Q Community Special Interest Group for delivering improvement training virtually and other relevant groups, for instance the learning from developing a podcast series and sharing tips and tricks. Additionally the project team will produce a blog which outlines their learning, such as this blog which reflects on learning from a online QI series delivered in Summer 2020 by the Academy team.