Guests including Chief Executives and Non-Executive Directors joined the online ‘Trust-wide Improvement: A Deep Dive' on July 20 to hear ELFT Board members discuss the value of Quality Improvement (QI) to services, service users and the organisation.
Chief Executive Paul Calaminus, Non-Executive Director and Acting Chair Eileen Taylor, Chief Quality Officer Dr Amar Shah and Executive Director for Integrated Care Richard Fradgley represented the Trust.
Paul Calaminus described the huge importance of QI to the Trust and his commitment to embedding QI thinking and tools at all levels.
“This method helps us say what isn’t working and it helps us go beyond that and say what can we do about that,” he told guests.
“It is different to other words and concepts about change and transformation as it is explicit in asking ‘can you identify something? Can you improve it? What can you try’.”
Paul also described the value of having a Chief Quality Officer as part of the Board.
“We have greater capacity for problem solving because we have a Chief Quality Officer alongside a Chief Nurse, Chief Medical Officer and a Chief Operating Officer.
Eileen Taylor told guests that QI is one of ELFT’s ‘organisational treasures’ along with People Participation.
“To improve the quality of life for our service users we have to be constantly improving as well,” she said.
Richard Fradgley said he genuinely believes QI thinking and tools are the way to tackle some of the complex problems being faced in health and social care.
Dr Amar Shah said embedding QI within a Trust starts with building belief and needs to be championed and used by the Executive team.
“We always have to make sure improvement is really connected to what matters to staff, service users and to our strategy,” he added, emphasising that more than 130 improvement projects taking place across ELFT can all be linked to its refreshed five-year strategy.
‘Trust-wide Improvement: A Deep Dive', is a live round table discussion with each webinar hosted by a different NHS trust leadership team.
Participants explore the role improvement is playing in meeting the challenges faced by health leaders today, consider what improvement looks like as the sector moved into recovery beyond the pandemic, and how improvement is being driven across organisational boundaries.