Quality Away Day at the Velodrome Park

24 September 2021

The Long awaited, post quarantine, meet up has finally happened and what an exciting day it was! On the 2^nd of September the Quality Assurance and Quality Improvement teams (AKA the Quality Department) met up at the Olympic Park Velodrome in Stratford. For some of the team it was to be the first ever Quality away day in person and the first time meeting other members in the QI team face to face.

The theme of the day was Reconnection, and we kicked off with some fun; a game of ‘3 questions’. Everyone prepared 3 interesting questions to ask, and we went round the room asking each other in turn. We can assure you that this is a great ice-break, with none of the awkward slightly anxious feeling some people get when its time to introduce themselves, this activity generated quality conversations with ease. How amazing that three random questions can open the floor for stories, adventures, life experiences and skills you would have never expected from the person in front of you.

We then went on to our second activity which was in the theme of Quality Department Bingo, and the first person to score a different name from someone in the team against a bingo card of facts and attributes took the title of the winner along with a prize! Can we just mention how surprised we were playing this game, who knew we had rappers in our team?! Quite a few a had met celebrities, whilst others had lived and worked abroad.

Aside from reconnection, the focus of the day was our Quality Plan for the next 90 days. For the QA Team we thought about our priorities to help us achieve our mission – to collaborate with our service users and services, to enable a better understanding of quality of care and promote improvement.

Alongside our team priorities, we were invited to create our own “Stinky Fish” making a note of all the pending tasks / work on our to do list that need to be completed and out the way, as a means of surfacing our own personal priorities (as well as who has the artistic talent in the team).

The outcomes were then fed back to the wider team, to generate the strategic plans of both the QA and QI department.

We ended the day with some “friendly” competition, and friendly is used with tongue firmly in cheek, because with a team full of fierce competitors… anything goes! In this challenge each team had 60 minutes to complete a list of tasks assigned, each task had a number of points rewarded according to difficulty level/embarrassment factor. Completion of each task required evidence to be sent to the judges to tally the scores. From convincing strangers to sing a song with us, to completing dance moves in public, vlogging our activities, and, inevitably, persuading any member of the team that an embarrassing task “wasn’t that awkward” only because you needed the points, but no way was it going to be you making the first move.

We made the most of our day (all whilst adhering to COVID safety rules, of course) It was so great to have the opportunity to not just spend time with one another, but to be surrounded with such enthusiasm, positivity and good vibes throughout the challenge as everyone worked collectively as a team to try to win.

What a fantastic day it was, until the next Quality Away Day.