The Q Lab brings people together to explore complex issues in health and care. We combine perspectives to create scalable, sustainable and systemic improvements.

For the past year, the Q Lab has been exploring how we can create collective responsibility to reduce delays in elective pathways.

Through the discovery and ideation stages of the Lab we have supported four test teams to:

• develop a systematic understanding of the problem in their local context
• identify areas open to change
• develop and test ideas to meet these challenges.

The teams’ ideas are now at the proof-of-concept stage, and we have awarded them follow-on funding to implement these ideas. Through this funding, they will be able to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of their ideas and continue to build partnerships and collaborations. We will also encourage and support teams to think about how their interventions could be applied beyond their local context. We want to harness collective learning of what works and how others can adopt and adapt it across the health and care system.

The funded teams

Aneurin Bevan University Health Board

This team are focusing on reducing the current waits for people with head and neck cancer by redesigning and streamlining the pathway.

South Doc Services

This team began by looking at the root causes of waits in acute urology services, and explored shifting delivery to primary care. They are now building on and expanding their initial pilot, rolling it out to more practices.

Stockport NHS FT

This team explored supporting patients on high opioid and pain relief on the pre-operative list, who are not currently seen by the pain management service. Their project will continue to increase successful appropriate referrals to their new multidisciplinary, rapid access perioperative pain clinic for patients undergoing elective surgery.

UCLH Paediatric Research

This team used an equity lens to understand and reduce non-attendance from young people using rheumatology services. They will now be proactively identifying and supporting young people at risk of missing appointments. They want to reduce Do Not Attend rates, improve capacity in outpatient care, and implement a peer support scheme across all paediatric services.

Stay connected

The teams will continue to share their progress over the coming year. You can join the Lab online group and look out for updates on our Q Lab page and in Qmunicate. If you have any questions, please get in touch.