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The QI Hub: A safe and creative space for improvement

Provide a virtual and in person work space for any member of Blackpool Teaching Hospitals, including hospital and community staff and patients, to share improvement, get support and network

Read comments 3
  • Proposal
  • 2022

Meet the team

Also:

  • Victoria Birkett
  • Sean Cross

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

In 2019, Blackpool Teaching Hospitals launched its first ever QI strategy, which included building QI capability across the Trust.  Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the appetite for QI has been phenomenal and there has been a high take up of training opportunities.

Early evaluation of the QI programmes has highlighted that staff have felt doing QI has been a productive way to distract from current pressures when they feel everything is “covid, covid, covid”(quote: ward manger from a pressure ulcer elimination QI programme).

Staff have shared how keen they are to be involved in QI but sometimes don’t know where to start, reporting they don’t always have physical space to plan QI work without being constantly interrupted.

This project will overcome these barriers, creating a virtual and in-person creative space. This will involve building an online QI resource library and library for QI projects for staff to access in a welcoming environment.

What does your project aim to achieve?

The aim is to develop a digital space where all quality improvement projects can be viewed and will inspire staff to undertake their own improvement projects. This will support the organisational aims to reduce waits, reduce waste and zero harms.

With the use of IPad’s and TV Screens the space can be used for staff members to not only view what projects are ongoing in the Trust, but it will enable them to begin their QI project there and then by using QI tools that will be built into the digital platform.

The use of a digital space will have a positive impact on recruitment and staff retention. It will also allow those staff undertaking QI to receive recognition.

How will the project be delivered?

The Project Sponsor will be the Executive Director for Nursing, AHP & Quality and the Project Director will be the Associate Director of Quality Improvement.

An expert faculty has already been developed that includes the relevant internal colleagues who will use their expertise and experience to make the development process more efficient.

We will also source iPads and PCs situated in the in-person hub to access all resources. We would also like digital poster displays to share the amazing QIP projects that have been developed by teams but not shared widely enough. This will create an inspiring , thinking space for staff, somewhere outside of their normal environment where they can come and look through the improvement projects, become inspired by the work and start to undertake their own.

How is your project going to share learning?

We are already an organisation keen to share our learning with networks on Twitter, posters at conferences and networks developed in our own ICS and beyond.  We want to continue to build on these good foundations and share work from the hundreds of our staff members undertaking QI projects, sharing collaborative working across the Trust and beyond, to spread best practice and a reduce patient harms, waits and wastes.

We want to develop further opportunities for shared learning from peers who have run similar projects in our organisation and with the broader QI community. We aim to share the learning from this project and resources with Q members and the QI community across the country.

How you can contribute

  • Learning from similar organisations that have undertaken similar projects to understand what went well and what didn’t work as well.
  • Experience of similar improvement projects,
  • Peer reviews,
  • Available resources,
  • Support with scaling the project nationally if good outcomes

Plan timeline

1 Apr 2022 Establishment of expert faculty and TOR
22 Apr 2022 Consultation with staff, patients and other users
12 May 2022 Co-design and technical requirements identified
15 Jun 2022 Purchase items and set up
30 Nov 2022 Implementation and evaluation

Comments

  1. Hello Nadine, how lovely to see you!

    Good question - we have seen a platform that we like the look of that another NHS Trust have developed.  I'll share that with you off line as we haven't discussed it with them yet, I don't want to surprise them in this forum!  It incorporates the core functions that you would expect for a QI platform and we will be looking to see whether it could be adapted to suit our organisation.  This would be for hospital and community teams - we're currently also working with service users leading improvement.  For example, we have residents in care homes with their own driver diagrams and SPC charts to help them reduce the number of times they fall.

    What we also really want to do is bring the digital to life in the QI Hub - a creative space where people can talk improvement feels really special and hopefully something we can do for our people here in Blackpool.

    Maybe you'd like to come and visit sometime Nadine?

     

    1. Sounds great! Do keep me updated - I'm still on nadine.payne@nhs.net

  2. Hello strangers! Long time no see

    Love the sound of this project

    We've been considering how we might do a similar digital platform for Primary Care for a while now, especially since we've really got off the ground with our new QI Fellowship programme. Unfortunately we haven't found any 'off the shelf' solution yet that meets our needs (or financial envelope!) so would be very interested in what you come up with and its potential transferability to other care settings.

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