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

Across the UK capacity for operations has been reduced and waiting lists have significantly increased. Our CholeQuIC-ER sites experienced these difficulties and have noted that excellent communication, both within teams and with other specialties, is key to ensuring limited opportunities in theatre list are utilised. CholeQuIC-ER teams have had to come up with and create solutions and used QI tools to do this. They have made changes, tested them out and then adapted if necessary.
We want to share these learnings and offer frontline teams the opportunity to develop their QI skills to help the recovery of their surgical services.

What does your project aim to achieve?

The project aims to work with surgical care teams on the ground to re-start their surgical services as well as improving their QI skills. The overall aim will be for teams to improve the quality of care they are delivering and enhancing patient experience.

How will the project be delivered?

The project team will be made up of RCS England’s Senior Project Manager, a clinical lead and two QI consultants. The funding will cover the two QI consultants’ time. The Project Manager’s time will be covered by RCS England and the Lead clinician will volunteer their time.

The project will be advertised through Q and RCS England’s communication channels. We will ask hospital teams who would like to take part to apply to join the project.

We will offer a series of four QI workshops,  the first of which will help each team identify their local needs. The workshops will teach transferable QI skills that they can apply to improve the quality of care at their hospitals. Sites will also work together collaboratively to solve challenges. We will also run 3 follow up calls with individual sites so we can be kept updated on their progress and challenges.

How is your project going to share learning?

If our bid is successful, we will be accountable for our success in delivering our project aims to the RCS England’s Research and Quality Committee, and through this Committee to the RCS Council.  We will also provide regular update on our progress and a final report outlining our learnings. This report will be shared via Q, the RCS England website and through RCS England’s communications channels such as socials and newsletters.