A Sense of Urgency, A Sense of Hope – Our Latest Paper on Continuous Improvement for Health & Care

We’re delighted to announce the publication of A Sense of Urgency, A Sense of Hope; our latest paper by our Chief Executive David Fillingham CBE and Director Lesley Massey exploring how organisations can develop and support a culture and system for continuous improvement.

In the paper, David and Lesley take a look at recent best practise, changes to the health and care landscape, and distil over eight years’ experience of working with members as the North West’s quality improvement body, into five key domains where organisations can support and invest in a quality improvement system:

• Vision
• Leadership & Culture
• Capability
• Developing an Operating System
• Aligning Support Services

Download your copy here

Speaking on its publication, David said:

“We’re really excited to share our new paper, and hope it offers our colleagues across health and care an in-depth framework to help support their aims for continuous improvement.”

“Whilst we recognise the extreme pressure the NHS and wider care sector continues to face, we feel it’s important to still look for a light at the end of the tunnel. Therefore it is vital organisations invest in improvement, if we are to meet the demands of better, more efficient care and improved outcomes for patients.”

“We really believe this is possible and as we highlight throughout the text, there are a number of organisations we can look to for inspiration to achieve this together.”

Throughout the paper, the pair also look at case studies from our work with members, including from: Aintree Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, North West Boroughs Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

Other examples also point to leading improvement organisations from other industries and sectors outside of health and care.

The paper was recently launched to over 100 delegates at a joint event with The King’s Fund; exploring successful approaches to quality improvement. Following the event, co-author Lesley Massey said:

“At the event delegates gave us some fantastic feedback on the framework and each of its five domains.

“We’re now developing a self-assessment diagnostic to support the framework, and would welcome interest from colleagues across the country who would be interested in testing this.”

If you would like to request a hard copy of the paper, or are interested in testing the self-assessment diagnostic, please get in touch via AQuA@srft.nhs.uk. Alternatively, feel free to share your thoughts with us via Twitter @AQuA_NHS.