1. Engage with staff and patients to ensure everyone knows about QI and feels empowered and energised to see improving care as a key part of their role.
2. Build improvement capability through a programme of QI education to enable staff to lead, champion and coach QI activities and initiatives within their teams.
3. Support teams to deliver focused QI projects and programmes which are co-designed with patients, service-users and the public.
4. Embed consistent and rigorous improvement methods when addressing all practical problems and strategic opportunities within the organisation.
The post holder, will provide expertise in improvement methodology and measurement. They will be responsible for the delivery of a trust-wide QI education programme, provision of support and guidance to staff members conducting QI projects, promoting engagement in QI, monitoring QI activities and outputs and promoting the spread of learning from QI activities to other departments.
The post holder will play an instrumental role in providing corporate leadership and support for a portfolio of improvement projects, promoting clinical engagement in QI amongst our staff and ensuring that learning from QI projects is shared and spread.
The post holder will work with senior leaders in the organisation to develop and enable quality improvement within the Trust.
- Support ongoing development and implementation of the Quality Improvement (QI) strategy and review on a yearly basis
- Lead on the Whittington Health QI programme
- Contribute and collaborate on Quality Account Priorities and goals, actively leading on relevant projects that form part of the Quality Account Priorities
- Provide leadership and improvement expertise for an allocated set of QI projects to maximise engagement, impact and learning.
- Design and deliver teaching in QI on a Trust-wide basis, building organisational QI capacity and capability with other key staff
- Act as an organisational expert on key elements of the IHI Model for Improvement QI methodology e.g. use of data and measurement in QI
- Act to maximise the following; co-design and co-production of QI projects with patients, clients and services users engaged in QI activity, communication of QI project outcomes and fostering topic based or service-based QI collaborations.
- Seek out opportunities and represent the Trust QI function at internal and external events and networks. Develop relationships with NCL QI collaborative and UCLP academic health science network.
We have an excellent reputation for being innovative, responsive and flexible to the changing clinical needs of the local population. We are treating more patients than ever before and are dedicated to improving services to deliver the best for our patients.
Our mission
Helping local people live longer, healthier lives.
Our vision
Provide safe, personal, co-ordinated care for the community we serve.
Our goals
We have developed six key strategic goals to make sure we continue to support people to live longer, healthier lives.
- To secure the best possible health and wellbeing for all our community
- To integrate and coordinate care in person-centred teams
- To deliver consistent, high quality, safe services
- To support our patients and users in being active partners in their care
- To be recognised as a leader in the fields of medical and multi-professional education, and population-based clinical research
- To innovate and continuously improve the quality of our services to deliver the best outcomes for our local population
1. Provide operational QI leadership and expertise across the trust.
- Lead on the QI programme, designing and delivering changes and developments with a Trust-wide impact.
- Monitor and evolve the QI programme including new ways of working, agreeing and adjusting plans as required.
- Scope QI initiatives to establish boundaries of the project (and exclusions where appropriate), current state in service provision and develop desired future state.
- Ensure majority of QI projects develop and use patient and public engagement methodologies.
- Ensure majority of QI projects promote financial efficiency and productivity benefits.
- Ensure robust data analysis is used to diagnose gaps and support solution development.
- Plan and lead QI workshops and QI clinics bringing together diverse groups of staff in a controlled environment to motivate change.
- Lead on development and execution of communication plans to ensure consistent messages are used to drive improvements and that benefits for patients, staff and the organisation are clearly defined.
- Regularly interrogate QI project register to ensure themes and outcomes captured and shared.
- Assist in building, revitalising and maintaining network(s) of QI faculty members to provide peer support to staff undertaking QI projects and initiatives.
- Work closely with the Quality Governance team to develop and deliver Quality Account priorities and projects
2. Act as an organisational expert on the use of data and measurement for QI
- Provide expert advice and where necessary, leadership, to staff at all levels in the organisation and on using data and measurement for improvement. This will involve reviewing complex data sets and formulating and amending strategies where there may be more than one course of action.
- Coach QI/audit leads, clinical and service directors and other directorate staff on analysing and interpreting data for improvement. This will involve reviewing complex data sets and formulating and amending strategies where there may be more than one course of action.
- Promote and support the publication of Trust QI work using data for improvement.
3. Management support QI projects in all ICSU’s across the Trust.
- Provide high level improvement expertise, leadership and coaching as required to project teams, QI sponsors and any other stakeholders involved in improvement work.
- Assist senior management to design and embed a structure to allow high priority improvement projects to be supported and thrive within existing infrastructure.
- Design any specialist learning events and publications that may be required to facilitate the progress of the QI projects and raise awareness of QI project outcomes.
- Attend project team or any other meetings relevant to the delivery of the project’s aims.
- In each QI project with which they are involved, the post holder will work closely with operational and clinical leaders to:
o Develop and agree the objective of the QI project.
o Agree and record desired outcome and process tracking metrics.
o Develop and implement tests of change using Plan-Do-Study-Act methodology.
o Manage risks associated with project delivery, in partnership with project operational leads and team, develop and execute controls and mitigations so that project delivery is in line with agreed timescales, escalating where appropriate.
o Co-ordinate project administration and ensure regular reviews of progress occur e.g. driver diagrams, action plans, progress reports.
o Lead project communications, including development of posters, presentations, publications and use of social and other media.
o Ensure that allocated project plan(s) are kept updated and regular reports provided to the Associate Director of Quality Governance, Clinical Effectiveness, Patient Safety and Patient Experience Commitees and other relevant executives and committees as required.
- Monitor progress of high priority projects and collaborate with relevant internal and external stakeholders to ensure progress in improvement work is maintained.
- Develop and foster relationships with staff in these project teams and manage these relationships such that team members proactively seek support.
- Actively engage clinical and non-clinical stakeholders who may be key to the project(s) achieving its aim(s).
- Collate and present information relating to the progress of these projects at internal and external forums and meetings.
- Coach and facilitate improvement project teams to promote and publish work being undertaken.
4. Design and deliver teaching in QI on a Trust-wide basis.
- Help support the development of QI capacity and capability within the organisation.
- Teach improvement science, including the use of measurement and data, at internal training events as required. These include, but are not limited to QI Enabled programme and bespoke learning events.
- Co-produce teaching and briefing materials and agendas/course training plans for training events.
- Evaluate and continue to develop in-house training, coaching and peer support packages on QI.
- Research and adapt Model for Improvement resources for use in service specific and Trust-wide learning and development activities.
- Develop and implement methods of assessing the impact and outcome from teaching, learning and development activities.
5. Support the development and deployment of the QI strategy
- Support the development of improvement priorities in line with the business planning cycle in the Trust.
- Support ICSUs to integrate QI into their quality, service delivery and cost improvement plans.
- Ensure majority of QI projects are patient centred and involve patient/carer representation in their design and implementation.
- Assist in engaging with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders to shape the Trust QI strategy and implementation plan. This will involve analysing and interpreting data in order to prioritise service improvements.
- Present highly sensitive and contentious information to a variety of audiences such as patients/clients and staff at all levels, including at Executive Board level as well as to external organisations.
6. Represent the Trust QI Programme at internal and external events
- Co-ordinate, create and present materials on the QI programme or any of its constituent parts at internal and external events, conferences, and awards as required.
- Collaborate with Quality Governance Team members and relevant network members as required to prepare and present any of this content.
- Coach, provide expert advice and encourage services and staff members to share findings form QI activities in internal and external forums.
7. Staff management and development
- Facilitate the personal and professional development of staff. This involves identifying training and development needs, providing suitable development opportunities and evaluating development actions in accordance with the Trust’s appraisal and training procedures.
- Seek out opportunities for topic or service-based collaborations, encourage, facilitate and support Trust staff participation in these collaborations, ensuring that lessons and materials are captured and shared widely.Monitor the level and standard of work undertaken by staff and guide, coach and advise them as appropriate. Provide briefing prior to and debriefing after all training and development activities.
- Take on a leadership role and supervise staff, students and other personnel as required by the service.
- Develop and maintain knowledge and links on how participation in QI activities contributes to clinical staff re-validation and trust staff Personal Development Reviews and plans.
8. Financial Management
- Assess the training required to deliver QI projects, conduct comparative analysis of training courses and commission appropriate courses to meet those needs in a cost-effective manner ensuring the Trust obtains best value.
- Research and adapt financial models relevant to assessing the costs and benefits of improved service delivery in QI projects as appropriate.
- Be responsible for the procurement of supplies for the service, as and when required, in line with Trust processes.
9. General responsibilities
- Plan and prioritise own work to ensure effective support to all areas and delivery of key objectives.
- Conduct all activity with an awareness of the potentially sensitive and/or contentious nature of information about patients, staff, other organisations and work processes.
