News & Updates
The QI Fellow Blog
15 November 2021
By Craig Donohoe, QI Fellow, QI coach, expert by experience and carer This is my blog as the first Quality Improvement (QI) Fellow – Expert by Experience in the ELFT QI department. I am Craig Donohoe, an expert by experience, carer, and service user from Luton, Bedfordshire. In this 15-minute read I will share my… Read More
Putting the Person at the Heart of the Process: Improving the New Starter Experience with QI
30 March 2021
By Candace Sinclair, Improvement Advisor, on behalf of the New Starter Working Group Starting a new job is rated as one of the most stressful life events irrespective of where you are in your career. The feeling of being overwhelmed in the first days of a job is common as new team members learn… Read More
Stories from Cohort 4 of Enjoying Work
29 March 2021
If you’re interested in making real improvements and improve the wellbeing and satisfaction of you and your team at work, sign up to an introductory session to Enjoying Work Use the links below to explore these stories: Randomised Coffee Meeting to Tackle Isolation A Cohesive Breakfast Club Improving the Experience of New Starters Using a… Read More
Change Does Not Have to be Wholesale
15 October 2020
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
Leveraging Microsoft PowerBI to bring our departmental data to life
15 September 2020
By Akkash Purani, Senior Improvement Data Analyst. The QI department have changed their yearly objectives (April-March) to 90-day objectives, allowing them to be more reactive and flexible during the COVID-19 pandemic. This approach is to strengthen data collection and analysis so that the team can understand and analyse their work during the initial stages of… Read More
Learning Disabilities Psychological Therapies making sense together: What changed during COVID-19?
15 September 2020
By Doranne McDonald and Carlos Santos, Improvement Advisors On 14 July, 2020, members of the Learning Disabilities (LD) Psychological Therapies team from Tower Hamlets, Newham, Hackney, and Bedfordshire & Luton, came together to reflect on their experiences during COVID 19, and the changes their service have had to make as a result. The participants included:… Read More
ELFT’s virtual Quality Improvement (QI) Collaborative with London Healthy Partnership (HLP) Continues Efforts To Reduce HIV Infections in London by 2030
2 September 2020
By Marco Aurelio, Improvement Advisor In the latest of our series of updates around ELFT’s support of a QI Collaborative, hear about how some of the organisations involved are getting on with their projects Since the beginning of 2020, twelve organisations have come together five times, as part of a Quality Improvement Collaborative. Two of these sessions were held face-to-face, and three virtually, as a result of COVID-19. The most recent events were held on 1 July and 14 August respectively. The aim of these sessions was to understand how the QI projects were progressing; to share learning; and for the organisations… Read More
SHAPING OUR FUTURE: Bedfordshire Inpatient Mental Health achievements under the pressure during Covid-19
25 August 2020
By Sher Kayani, Improvement Advisor 2021 update: The following three strategic priorities and their respective sponsors will inform and guide the quality improvement work for the Luton & Bedfordshire Inpatient Directorate in 2021 and they are as follows: • Connection (Sponsor, Dr Guy Thompson) • Outcomes & Safety (Sponsor, Sasha Singh) • Staff Health &… Read More
City and Hackney: Nurturing the roots of change using projects and daily improvement tools during the pandemic
20 August 2020
By Francisco Frasquilho, Senior Improvement Advisor 2021 update: The Mother and Baby Unity (MBU) project team have continued to trial out a new electronic recording system for referrals, seeing a shift downwards in the time taken to process new referrals (an 85% reduction) in September 2020. The team were also planning to test out a… Read More
Community Health Newham Service Users & Carers Lead the Way
20 August 2020
By Susan Alfred, Improvement Advisor Congratulations to the Community Health Newham (CHN) directorate for delivering two firsts in their directorate on Tuesday 21st July 2020. With a mixed team of enthusiastic service users, carers and staff the directorate saw – Their first service user/carer inspired and led project officially started and Their first project launch… Read More
A Quality Improvement Approach to DNAnudge/COVID-19 Point-of-Care Testing in Mental Health
14 August 2020
By Jamie Stafford, Senior Improvement Advisor In recent months, a team of staff in Tower Hamlets have begun using Quality Improvement to try and improve Point-of-Care COVID-19 testing, in order to reduce the amount of time service users are required to spend in isolation, thereby improving service user and staff experience. In order to structure… Read More
QI Essentials: More than a set of tools…
11 August 2020
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
Using Improvement Tools
10 July 2020
“Forensics newsflash! With so much change over the past few months, the Forensics directorate have really had to their utilise improvement tools. They have mapped out the causes and effects of racial inequality using a ‘fishbone diagram’. A ‘sketchnote’ has been drawn to communicate a new quality improvement project. A plan to mitigate the impact of Covid19 has been laid out using… Read More
Shaping the Future of ‘Integrated Discharge Hubs’ in Bedfordshire
8 July 2020
By Michael Mcghee, Carlos Santos, Susan Alfred, Carole Green, Gopal Waddon and Amrus Ali 2021 update: The ‘BCHS Shaping Our Future’ workshops brought staff, service users and partners together to help shape the future of the ‘Integrated Discharge Hubs’ in both Luton & Dunstable and Bedford hospitals. The hubs were set up in all ELFT… Read More
How I have improved my garden and wellbeing during lockdown
8 June 2020
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
The Quality Assurance Team’s Experience of Recruiting Virtually
24 April 2020
On Wednesday 1st and Thursday 2nd April the Quality Assurance team followed in the footsteps of the Quality Improvement team in conducting our first set of virtual assessment centre and virtual interviews for 3 new staff members. We took a slightly different approach with Quality Assurance Manager Selina testing Webex and Quality Assurance Manager Ellie testing… Read More
Developing, rapid cycle testing and scaling an idea within a day for PPE ordering
24 April 2020
By Marco Aurelio, Improvement Advisor 2021 Update: The team went on to update their flowchart as they iterated on the design of their process for ordering and delivering Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). This soon developed into designing a warehouse process that now employs staff with supply chain skills and… Read More
Adapting my home for virtual working
21 April 2020
Hi I am May Sunday, Senior Programme Officer for the ELFT QI Department. Despite the changes that COVID-19 has brought, it was important for me to continue to support the Quality Improvement Department and staff across the Trust in a productive way now more than ever. The pandemic came as a shock to us all… Read More
Morrison Ward’s Daily Improvements during COVID-19
1 April 2020
The wards at the John Howard Centre, in our Forensics Service, are making sure to share good practice with each other during the COVID-19 crisis. For example, they’re all planning ahead in partnership with service users to find out what meaningful activities people would want if they were to be isolated. They’re hearing about skills… Read More
QI data team ‘tests’ virtual assessment centre & interviews
1 April 2020
As with other areas in the trust we must rapidly adapt to the current situation. So, on Wednesday 25th March the QI department conducted our first virtual assessment centre and virtual interviews. Applying improvement methodology enabled learning from this experience, important not only for the department but also the whole trust. Our theory was that we… Read More
