Let’s Celebrate Improvement Collaboration

• This year’s cohort of Quality Improvement (QI) Projects came together for the Improvement Collaborative Celebration
• Attendees were invited to explore how they worked with staff and patients in achieving their QI project aims
• Dr Con Kelly, Chief Medical Officer; Sandra Jayacodi, Expert by Experience; Ross Graves, Chief Strategist and Digital Officer and Dr Simon Edwards, Trustwide QI Clinical Lead were all speakers at the event
• The event culminated with an awards ceremony where all teams walked the red carpet to receive their certificate 

When QI groups get together, is there some competition? Yes, but in a great way!

When QI groups get together, is there big celebration? Yes, it’s the best.

When QI groups get together, do they learn from each other? Definitely!

All of the above was on show at the Improvement Collaboration Celebration where a cheery learning atmosphere took over Trust HQ for the morning. 

QI Project teams came together with their QI Leads to share their collaborative journey with other groups in the Trust.

The event gave teams the opportunity to celebrate their successes and proudly show them off, as well as learn from aspects of their project that could have gone better.

Throughout the morning, in their project teams, attendees were asked to look back on their journey so far, and using exercises like ‘mapping your collaborative journey’, and using appreciative interviews to explore the recipe for success in future improvement work. 

Dr Con Kelly and Ross Graves, opened the event, talking to the over 60 attendees about how the work they were doing was crucial for maintaining patient safety and elevating patient care in CNWL.

Dr Simon Edwards, Trustwide QI Clinical Lead, Then took to the floor and ended his talk with a heartfelt thank you to all those involved.

On each table there were post-it notes in the shape of a hand, attendees was asked to high five someone if they liked what they said or did for their QI project. There was two choices, someone could ‘high five’ the person or stick the hand on the groups QI poster.

By the end of the day some people were walking around with multiple hands stuck to their lanyards.

Geetika said: “it was a great show of appreciation and solidarity. You could see the pride in their eyes from receiving a compliment from people that know – first-hand – what it’s like to run a QI project.”

One person from each group was invited to speak about an aspect they found was crucial to their success. When one team talked about how a PDSA cycle didn’t go to plan, they mentioned, how everyone in the project looked at members of the team and realised there’s too many managers and not enough frontline staff. In the end, managers were asked to leave (respectfully of course). As the room responded in good humour at the idea of managers being asked to leave, Alison Butler, Trust QI Lead, reflected on the core principles of quality improvement in CNWL:

“QI is first and foremostly about frontline staff and patients, they are the ones seeing where improvement needs to be and with QI it gives them the tools and empowers them to make a difference. It’s important to have supportive managers that help a project, but in terms of delivery and coming up with an action plan, frontline staff and patients are the main stakeholders…”

Then it was that time of the morning where awards were being handed out, each winner was invited to take their turn on the Improvement red carpet and collect a certificate. You can see the full list of winners at the end of the article.

Finally, it wouldn’t be a celebration without cake and everyone got to have a piece as a little thank you for their hard work.

And in a final twist, the celebration was gate crashed (But everyone loved it)! CNWL’s Deputy Head of Social Work and Social Care, Elizabeth Folarin gave Claudine Pisani (Team Manager REST) an award that she missed last month at the social care conference.

Full list of winners:

• Jameson HR retention who are being awarded for The most ambitious project
• Diggory Quality Governance who are being awarded the P-Surfing to Improvement Award
• Milton Keynes Community Nursing Teamwho are being awarded theWisdom to know what you can Change Award
• Milton Keynes WICU Team (Community Health Services)who are being awarded for Innovation in engaging with patients
• Specialist Rehab who are being awarded for the Power of One
• Information Governance Team who are being awarded for Stakeholder engagement excellence
• Patient Feedback and Complaints Team who are being awarded for Interstellar tenacity
• Kensington and Chelsea CAMHS who are being awarded for Parental engagement par excellence
• Liaison Psychiatry Team (Northwick Park Hospital​) who are being awarded for Navigating Complexity
• Milton Keynes 0-19 Team who are being awarded for Engaging with and use of data
• Rapid Engagement and Support Team who are being awarded for High Energy & Outstanding Involvement
• KCW ReFocus Team who are being awarded for Sustained Improvement
• Milton Keynes Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Team who are being awarded for Creating Lemonade from Lemons ~ Positivity Award
• Westminster CAMHS Neurodevelopmental & Intellectual Disability Team who are being awarded for Imminent Improvement
• Westminster CAMHS EDT who are being awarded for Destined for the world stage
• Liaison Psychiatry Team (Hillingdon Hospital) who are being awarded for Sphere of influence Change Makers
• Infection Prevention and Control Team (Hand Hygiene) who are being awarded for Most moments in a QI project award