News & Updates
Using QI to reduce therapies waiting lists in the Extended Primary Care Teams (EPCT)
20 September 2022
by Carlos Santos and Gemma Blake-Ryder The TH EPCTs (Tower Hamlets Extended Primary Care Teams), working across four localities in Tower Hamlets, have come together to start an amazing piece of improvement work, aiming at reducing the size of waiting lists for Therapies by 12% by December 2022. To achieve this, the teams have worked… Read More
Applying QI along the journey to becoming a Marmot NHS trust – Tackling social determinants of health in Newham and Luton
20 July 2022
Over the past 50 years, the recognition of the role that the wider social determinants of health play have been increasingly highlighted. These building blocks of health include things like work, education, housing, demographic factors and access to food to name a few. However, what is clear is that those who are more socio-economically disadvantaged… Read More
Pursuing Equity Perinatal Project
20 July 2022
Justine Cawley, ELFT Trustwide Lead for Perinatal Mental Health In this clip you can hear from Justine on how they are working to support improving outcomes for women experiencing perinatal mental health issues. Hear why it’s important to some of the groups most impacted by the issue. You will also hear what the team are… Read More
How Newham Mental Health directorate are pursuing equity
20 July 2022
By Catherine Heaney, Improvement Advisor, ELFT QI Three teams in Newham Adult Mental Health services, are working to pursue equity for those they serve using Quality Improvement (QI) methods as part of the ELFT Pursuing Equity Programme. In this story you can find some short video clips from these teams describing the focus of their… Read More
Using QI to support access and outcomes for Black and Minority Ethnic populations in Newham, Tower Hamlets and City & Hackney
20 July 2022
By Carlos Santos, Improvement Advisor and Sam Ogunkoya, Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) People Participation Worker & QI Project Lead In this interview you will hear from Sam Ogunkoya and the project he is leading to improve the accessibility of Mental Health Services for the BAME population of Newham, Tower… Read More
Pursuing Equity – Equal Access to Tower Hamlets Early Intervention Service Psychology
20 July 2022
by Eleanor Addo, Ramla, Shanaz & Catherine Tunnard Interested in the power of co-production? Want to ensure your service is more equitable? Read how Tower Hamlets Early Intervention Service (THEIS) harnessed co-production to make their service more equitable and increase and sustain access to psychological therapies for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) service users… Read More
Bow ward shortlisted for Nursing Times award
20 July 2022
The team on Bow ward have been recently shortlisted for the Nursing Times award. The team have been using QI to improve care for their inpatients and their staff by adopting trauma informed principles, safety, choice, collaboration, trustworthiness, and empowerment. Bow ward is the only all-female adult forensic ward and in addition there was a… Read More
Using improvement in all we do
20 May 2022
ELFT staff and service users have been learning quality improvement (QI) methods and applying them to improve what matters most to them for the last 7 years. A significant number of staff and service users are trained in improvement: Over 2000 existing staff have undertaken introduction to QI training More than 200 service users have… Read More
QI coaches’ suggestions on using improvement in all we do
20 May 2022
By Francisco Frasquilho, Head of Improvement Capability For quality to flourish improvement needs to be set free and be open to everyone. Our local QI Coaches, who provide an essential source of support for improvement, met in May 2022 for the Quarterly Coaching Catch-up. The main topic of discussion was about how to further support… Read More
How I Used QI in my Recovery
20 May 2022
By Lenna Adley, Peer Support Work, ELFT I have recorded a short video with Tim Gill, QI Programme Manager, on how I used QI in my Recovery. I hope people find it helpful, in July I will be sharing a written piece on how we can use QI in every aspect of our lives. … Read More
Supporting staff to improve waste in everyday work – ELFT’s Learn and Apply Series
20 May 2022
Have you ever looked around your place of work and considered that there are lots of opportunities to improve the value we provide to our service users by removing waste in our system? The concept of waste is defined by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement as “resources expended in money, time and/or personnel, that do… Read More
Developing service strategies using improvement tools in Bedfordshire Wellbeing Service
20 May 2022
Have you ever felt like you don’t know how to organise all your great ideas for improvement into a coherent strategy? Or maybe you got lots of ideas you are working on and don’t know how to keep track of them? Then read on Bedford Wellbeing Service (BWS), who provide talking therapies to those living… Read More
Nurturing Improvement in everyday work in Tower Hamlets Community Health Services
20 May 2022
By Carlos Santos, Improvement Advisor We often associate gossip in the workplace as a negative activity. But did you know gossip at work can be beneficial?1. The idea of positive gossip or sharing something about others when they have done something well, has been seen to have positive effects at work. Tower Hamlets Community Health… Read More
Nurturing an improvement Culture at London Community Health Services (CHS): The Annual Visit from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement
20 May 2022
By Carlos Santos, Improvement Advisor What is a culture of improvement and what are some of the core ingredients needed to help this thrive? These are the questions that the London Community Health Services at ELFT have recently been asking themselves. The directorate was lucky to have some time to think this through with our… Read More
Adult Autism Service (Bedfordshire) – Our Improvement Journey
20 May 2022
By Bedfordshire Adult Autism Service, Pat Moyce (Service User) and Mack Mclean (Carer) Supported by Satwinder Kaur (QI Coach with Lived Experience) The Adult Autism Service (Bedfordshire), aimed to reduce, in 7 months’ time, the average waiting times for first appointments from 59 weeks to 49 weeks by 31 January 2022 We commenced the… Read More
Quality Improvement in Everyday Work in the Forensic Directorate
18 May 2022
In this 5-minute read, learn about how the Forensic Directorate is using improvement in everyday work. On a sunny day in April the Forensic Directorate coaches and sponsors gathered together at a venue in Clissold Park to hold their inaugural coaches away day. Organised by Dr Sian Llewellyn-Jones, Quality Improvement (QI) sponsor, and Emma Furlong,… Read More
IHI Visit 2022: Bedfordshire Community Health Services (BCHS)
4 May 2022
By Nicola Ballingall, Senior Improvement Advisor This 6 minute read about the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s (IHI) visit 2022 is best enjoyed whilst listening to the BCHS QI playlist that the group created on the day. With a focus on demand and capacity, we heard about the QI work going on in Occupational Therapy, podiatry,… Read More
Improving the experience of New Starters trust-wide
12 April 2022
Written and contributed to by project team members: Lenna Adley (Project Lead), Katherine Brittin, Tanya Carter, Tina Collins, Alison Naughton, Dave Pearson, Kashif Ghafoor, Bernard Wooster, Martin Greig, Sheila O’Connell, Sonia Kaur, Isabella Larkin, Joseph Duncan & Angharad Ruttley. Staff starting at ELFT have sometimes felt that they aren’t receiving all they need to do… Read More
How PDSA testing helped the Early Years Speech and Language Therapy team decide to implement text message reminders
8 April 2022
By Cath Heaney, Improvement Advisor and Natalie Stowell, project leader and Graduate Management Scheme Trainee. In this 6-minute read, learn about how the Early Years Speech and Lan