Oakley Court Watching: Saving Time, Money and Reducing Waste

By Satwinder Kaur, QI coach with lived experience And the Oakley Court project team: Charlotte Bonser – project lead Pauline Rochester, Anisah Khanum & Elizabeth Thompson – Project Team 12 minute read Simple changes can mean real improvement. In this story, learn how the Oakley Court project team used the QI methodology to save time,… Read More

Technology for Teams in a Virtual Landscape

QI Learning sessions run by the Tech Champions   by Samina Aklas, Trainee Data Analyst It is always stimulating to deploy new technology and tools to enhance the work we do. The Quality department asked for volunteers from within the department to become Tech Champions. They offered a series of group and 1:1 session to… Read More

Tackling Social Isolation in Forensics Community Teams

by Nicola Ballingall, Improvement Advisor 4 minute watch Forensics community teams ran a Shaping our Future workshop to guide their response to Covid-19. It was attended by staff and service users from the East London Forensic Outreach Service (ELFOS) and the Specialist Community Forensics Team (SCFT) as well as partners who provide accommodation to our… Read More

A New Approach to Looking at Reducing Covid Infections

by Francisco Frasquilho, Senior Improvement Advisor and Nicola Ballingall, Improvement Advisor A new approach to looking at reducing Covid infections is being pioneered in City and Hackney, headed by Becks Lingard (Borough Lead Nurse), Lucy Goody (Gardner Ward Manager), and Claire Ritchie (Modern Matron). The team are meeting daily to progress the work, supported by… Read More

Recognising Racism: Using QI to Help Take Action

By Tonderai Kasambira, Head of Nursing and Associate Clinical Director of Safety and Security – Forensics Cornelia Kundishora, (Project Lead) Modern Matron – Forensics Emma Furlong, Occupational Therapy Assistant – Forensics Nicola Ballingall, Improvement Advisor – Forensics “Racism is different from violence and aggression as it affects and offends all BAME staff on shift.” (East… Read More

Lived Experience in Covid Times: service users’ stories of Bedfordshire Wellbeing Service in 2020

By Anna, Franchesca and Cath Heaney Improvement Advisor 6 minute watch Bedfordshire Wellbeing Service (BWS) are sharing their experiences of Quality Improvement through this series of stories.  This 6-minute video is the third in the series. Anna and Franchesca discuss their lived experiences of the service during Covid times through the lenses of being service… Read More

QI and Pandemics in Bedfordshire, six months later: What did we learn?

By Liz Dawson, Medical Director of Primary Care since April 2020 and former Clinical director for adult community services across Bedfordshire and Carlos Santos, Improvement Advsior for Corporate Services, Adult Community Services across Bedfordshire and for Primary Care across the Trust On the brink of Covid-19, multiple difficult decisions had to be made about which… Read More

Managing My Time with the ‘Microsoft To-Do’ App

By Samina Aklas, Trainee Data Analyst Working from home during the Covid pandemic has brought with it a reliance on technology and as the world of technology evolves and new applications emerge, it has had a bigger impact on our working lives now more than ever. To maintain a work/life balance time management has become… Read More

Improving the New Starter Process with Tower Hamlets Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services

Words and images by Nicola Ballingall, Improvement Advisor This story explains how Tower Hamlets Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) were able to improve their new starter process using QI methods. 2 minutes read time   As part of their work in the Enjoying Work programme, Tower Hamlets Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services… Read More

Improving the Health of Homeless Populations in Tower Hamlets – A Triple Aim Project

co-written by Ché Rosebert, project lead, Louise Noronha and three people with lived experience including Gary Ash   “You have to do something to help the homeless” service users told the Tower Hamlets team in 2018, when they held a listening event for service users. Homeless people have a shockingly low life expectancy in the… Read More

The Inspirational Miracle of Service User, Carer and Staff Co-production: a journey never taken before

By Craig, Susannah and Upma   Satwinder,  also involved in the training, has composed the following poem which encapsulates the co-production experience. Empowering one another today, we come together, we care and listen from voices shared in this virtual space Learning from different journeys that have led us here, together, we respect and value all… Read More

Bedfordshire Wellbeing Service’s Stories

The year no-one expected enjoyment in work to increase… yet it did!

Lived experience of staff in Bedfordshire Wellbeing Service in 2020  by Julia Robson, Sharon Gugerly and Catherine Heaney Read time 2.5 minutes Find out how Bedfordshire Wellbeing Service were able to unexpectedly increase their satisfaction at work during the Covid pandemic and the handful of other surprise benefits that it brought them whilst working in… Read More

Change Does Not Have to be Wholesale

how the processes behind the data team evolved by Akkash Purani, Senior Improvement Data Analyst Following on from the story of how internal communication with the QI Department was streamlined, the Data sub-team took this further and began working on their own internal system for communication and standard processes. With a new starter joining the… Read More

Using My Voice and Getting it Heard: Service Users in CAMHS share their experiences of Shaping Our Future Workshops

By Catherine Heaney, Improvement Advisor 

Reconnecting with Service User QI Coaches and the Community QI Forum in Luton and Bedfordshire: Voices of our Service User and Carer QI Coaches

By Satwinder Kaur (QI Coach and Service User), Craig Donohoe (QI Coach, Service User and Carer) and Daisy Maradzika (Improvement Advisor) Why is Quality Improvement and the Community QI Forum important post Covid-19? Satwinder Kaur (QI Coach and Service User) As a QI coach with in-depth knowledge of involvement in projects and as a practising… Read More

QI Essentials: More than a set of tools…

There’s no doubt that quality improvement employs a large set of tools – driver diagrams, statistical process control charts, Pareto charts, force field diagrams, cause and effect diagrams, PDSA cycles, affinity diagrams, flow charts… The list could go on and on. Indeed, one of the comforts that quality improvement brings is the chance to build… Read More

My Experience Of Being Virtually Recruited During Lockdown

By Samina Aklas,Trainee Data Analyst, Quality Improvement Team It is always an exciting, but nerve-racking experience when starting a new job. Adapting to an unfamiliar environment, and meeting new colleagues is hard. It’s even harder during a global pandemic, where there have been unprecedented changes in many areas. I strongly believe that things happen for a reason.   As it was still lockdown, I went through the whole recruitment process at… Read More

Tech Champions – Supporting the Quality Improvement Department with New and Existing Technology

Figure 1. Tech Champions in the Quality Improvement Department testing new and innovative ways of doing things.In early 2020 not everybody in the Quality Improvement Department was up to speed with the latest software and technology that was available to us. This was exacerbated when the Covid-19 lockdown began, and we needed to find new… Read More

How I have improved my garden and wellbeing during lockdown

By Tim Gill, QI Programme Manager In recent years I’ve been trying to make the most of my garden, aiming for a pleasant place to relax and some extra benefits of home grown produce! This photo was taken in June 2018 and it seems I had some potatoes in progress and what looks like young courgette plants in the trough.  … Read More