How the Data Team from QI have been supporting ELFT during COVID-19

By Akkash Purani, Senior Improvement Data Analyst

COVID-19 has caused us all to adapt in one way or another, and QI’s Data Team is no different. We’ve been helping to support ELFT during COVID-19. Forid Alom (Head of Improvement Analytics) and I have been, and continue to be, involved in a range of activities to support teams across ELFT. Below is a snapshot of some of the work that we’ve been involved with since the lockdown.

• Digitisation of forms: Using Microsoft Forms, we’re helping teams to digitise their current forms, which allows teams to carry on with their normal tasks as well as maintain social distancing. We have helped the Learning and Development Team with their local induction form and the Covid-19 training checklist.
• Creating new forms for new processes: Again, using Microsoft Forms, we have worked with the Procurement team to create forms that have helped staff across the trust order PPE and uniforms.
• MS Teams set-up: We’ve been helping the IT Department by creating teams in Microsoft Teams. This has alleviated pressure from ELFT’s IT Department, allowing them to focus their attention on ensuring that teams across the trust are able to work remotely and have access to clinical systems. With the use of MS Forms, MS Power Automate and MS Excel, we’ve created a streamlined process which allows us to respond to requests instantaneously.
• MS Teams support: As the QI team has been using MS Teams for some time now, Forid created a guide on how to use its features and the Quality Department will be hosting weekly webinars for staff to go through MS Teams. This includes a Q&A session. We ran our first webinar on 22nd April, where we were joined by 28 members of staff from across the Trust. Please see the details and sign up form for this here.
• Check-in app: We led on testing a potential app to use for this before using menti.com. Unfortunately, the app had technical issues.

Using PDSA’s and process maps during this process have allowed us to iterate and ensure that anything we create is fit for purpose and in working order.

The results and feedback have been great. So far, we have created more than 150 teams from more than 100 requests from ELFT staff. Teams have been really positive and grateful for the support that they have received (as seen below).

Our next steps are to continue supporting teams across the trust and to continue innovating by learning how to integrate further with Office 365 to make full use of it. This includes learning more about MS Power Automate in order to streamline further processes. We hope that staff will find the webinars helpful and I think that it highlights the need for a central platform where staff can go to for tech support as well as building capability within the trust for these new technologies that we are beginning to use.

Below is some of the feedback that we have received:

Please contact Akkash Purani, Senior Improvement Data Analyst, on akkash.purani@nhs.net or @akkash_p on twitter if you’d like to talk about anything mentioned above.