Posted on: 15 February 2019
Improvement Coaches in each division are ready, willing, and able to support your QI projects
This month coincides with the first Improvement Coaches forum (more on this later) and the start of the recruitment process for the second Improvement Coach Development Programme (Wave 2). Improvement Coaches are staff who have undergone specialist training in applying coaching skills alongside the QI model for improvement. Each division has their own cohort of improvement coaches whose support can be accessed simply by contacting one of the coaches from your Division. We’ll show you how to find out who these coaches are later in this newsletter.
Wherever you are on your QI journey there are opportunities to become more involved. For those of you just starting out, why not register for Bitesize QI, a monthly half -day training session outlining the key components of the Model for Improvement? You can now register for Bitesize QI training. Details of the training is available on the microsite or if you are happy to go it alone, the IHI modules QI101-QI105 of the excellent online training will give you what you need to get your project started
QI project spotted on Twitter this month
The above tweet shows just one of the change ideas from Jameson division: K&C Improving Staff Morale on Danube Ward QI project. The project will encourage open discussion among staff to help develop interventions specifically tailored to staff on the ward. Although baseline assessment has shown that morale is reasonable on Danube Ward, there is recognition that low staff morale and raising incidence of work-related illness are major challenges in the NHS, and that concerns raised by staff would indicate there is room for improvement. The project is initially focusing on four main areas impacting on staff morale: teamwork, level of support, feeling valued, and work-related stress/illness. It is anticipated that addressing these four main areas will also improve team cohesiveness, wellbeing and general performance. For more information you can find the project on Life QI
Living longer and healthier lives. Goodall: Horton Inpatient Rehabilitation Services Birch Ward.
A QI project on Birch Ward in Horton Inpatient Rehabilitation services in Goodall Division hopes to improve the physical health and wellbeing of patients experiencing long inpatient stays. The team is using assertive assessment and introducing opportunities, initiatives and systems that support the active management of physical health and wellbeing. The physical health and wellbeing of patients with mental health issues, in particular those with a severe mental illness (SMI) diagnosis, is known to be of concern when compared to the general population. Indeed people with a severe and enduring mental illness tend to live up to 20 years less than the rest of the population.
In order to tackle the health inequalities of those diagnosed with SMI, the project team have significantly improved their physical health assessments. In order to continue this good work, ward staff are aspiring to further improve patients’ health by helping them to reduce their group Body Mass Index (BMI) by 10%. Although this project only started in January the project team has already achieved the following:
- Started weekly monitoring of people’s weight and BMI, and entered this information as a run chart on Life QI
- Agreed with patients that takeaways will only be ordered once a week
- Started reviewing patients’ physical health in order to ensure their health can be optimised
- Arranged for patients to have their feet checked, as there’s no point in asking people to be more active if their feet hurt!
- Introduction of walking groups at weekends
Of the health checks so far Helen Willets (Divisional Nursing Director) reported the following:
“We started some detailed physical health care checks with the support of one of our CIS advanced nurse assessors. She saw five patients, two of which were found to have significant physical health problems we need to follow up on. If the project does nothing else it’s been worth it for this alone.”
For more information on this amazingly worthwhile project you can check out their project on Life QI
Coaching support for QI projects in each division
Recently added to this site are the names and contact details of all the QI Improvement Coaches in each division. These coaches can be contacted either for ad hoc support or with a view to supporting your QI projects as members of your QI project team in the role of Improvement Coach.
Improvement Coaches forum 8 February
Thanks to all the Improvement Coaches who attended the first quarterly Improvement Coach forum on 8 February. The forum featured some really supportive conversations and focused on the function of the forum being; formative, normative and restorative going forwards.We look forward to meeting up again at the next forum scheduled to take place on the 9 May.
Improvement Coach Development Programme (Wave 2) advance notice
The second cohort of this intensive and enjoyable training programme will commence in May, with three face to face workshops taking place on 13 to 15 May, and the second series of three day workshops 15 to 17 July. We’re going to start the application process for the programme on 25 February, and it will be co-ordinated by Divisional QI Clinical Leads. Please keep an eye out for future communications in Weekly News or via your own divisional communication channels.
Welcome to Diggory Division’s new QI Clinical Lead
Many congratulations to Michele Dowling (Quality and Performance Manager at HMP Woodhill) who replaces Simon Edwards as QI Clinical Lead for Diggory Division. Simon is still of course the Trustwide QI Clinical Lead. Michele will bring to her role considerable QI experience and is both an IHI trained Improvement Advisor and Improvement Coach.
QI Tip of the month: Adding a coach to your Life QI project
It’s not only easy to add a coach to your QI project, it’s really important that you do so. Improvement Coaches are a valuable resource and it’s important that Life QI accurately records which improvement coach is working on any particular QI project.
Step 1. On your projects front-screen click on ‘Project team’
Step 2. Click on ‘Invite new members’
Step 3. Type the name of your coach in the name field
Step 4. In the ‘Role’ field choose ‘coach’ from the drop down menu, then click ‘Invite’.
Update on our numbers
Here’s an update on the number of live projects on Life QI
o We now have 267 active projects on Life QI
o 947 staff have now registered on Life QI
o 30 QI projects have been completed on Life QI
You can see here that more of you have joined our Life QI community online:
Blinked and you missed it?
Thank you to all of you who took the opportunity to discuss or even show-off your QI project achievements to our CQC colleagues. It’s good to share. You can find January’s edition and indeed all the previous editions this site. Alternatively you can watch the video of the article which was included in last month’s edition - Improving Care in Pharmacy Services - When Quality goes up costs go down!