20 February 2024

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) cements CNWL as a ‘leading organisation for expert by experience involvement’ when they visited the Trust for their annual review of CNWL’s Improvement Academy.

The IHI and CNWL have been partners since the start of the Trust’s quality improvement (QI) journey.

Like a QI project undertaken in services and wards, the Trust’s QI Team have been on their own improvement journey, and the IHI have offered guidance from the beginning and all the way to the development the fully realised CNWL Improvement Academy.

Every year IHI visit the Trust to help review objectives, undertake site visits, meet with improvement project teams and senior leaders, and offer feedback.

The recent visit in November left a lasting impression and CNWLwas applauded for its work over the last year.

The IHI commended the Trust for:

  • Strong Expert by Experience (EbE) progress, beyond 80% which is more than IHI anticipated
  • Clear, intentional alignment with strategy, one strategy. Shows more clarity of purpose
  • There’s motivation for staff themselves to do QI work (bottom up improvement) rather than a push to do QI work from senior leaders
  • Evidence of clinical leadership and humility, there is now a cultural shift at CNWL
  • Improvement and innovation, for impact
  • A solid central improvement infrastructure, recognition given that our improvement work is having to change with the organisational needs and priorities
  • Clear spread of learning and plenty of opportunities for celebration and reflection – CNWL have started their spreadathons programmes and have been celebrating successes of project teams through the Safety Conversation Day.

A quote from IHI’s review said:

“[Our visit to CNWL] turns out to be one of the best learning experiences, meeting other CNWL London colleagues, sharing experiences and seeing the data of activities. I am so pleased to see the journey of Willow Ward so far. It was good to identify the areas needed for improvement in Willow. I will definitely travel back happily after a very constructive day.”

The need for improvement doesn’t stop and the Improvement Academy looks forward to keeping up their achievements while looking to the future.

Alison Butler, Director of Improvement said:

“After a glowing review, one which we are all proud of, and one our teams across services who have taken on a QI project deserve, we’re looking ahead to the next year and focusing on: Strategy, productivity, and sustainability  – the three areas IHI recommends our next focal points to be. We look forward to welcoming IHI next year and hopefully wowing them with our progress.”