Introducing Kelly Gale, as our new interim Improvement Advisor!

What’s the history of your work at ELFT? 

I started working for the NHS in 2005 for Newham PCT, which eventually became ELFT.

My first job in Newham PCT in 2005 was as a Project Manager and since then I have been a Service Manager for several different community teams, Service Re-design Manager across the CHN Adult Directorate and Business Transformation Manager working across CHN’s Adults and Children’s Teams.

What’s your QI experience?

My first Project was as a joint Lead with the manager of the CHN continence service.  We were both on the same QI training and I was also doing the first wave of QI Coaches training at the same time.  The continence service had some issues around waiting times and service delivery, so we formed our QI project to tackle this.

Our project lasted for about 6 months and we tried and tested many change ideas to improve the service delivery and used many tools such as process mapping and pareto charts.  Eventually we reduced and maintained the average waiting time for the patients from 46 days to 18 days – a reduction of 57%.  The project won the Commissioners Award for Service Improvement at the 2016 ELFT Annual Awards.

Click on the image to see the Continence Project poster in detail

I’ve coached around 10 projects in CHN adults and children’s directorate over the past couple of years, some have been successful and some have been a learning curve.  The most challenging ones were always due to time and capacity constraints within the project team, and as a coach it’s your job to realise if the team are struggling and the reasons why.  It’s important to get them to see that the project isn’t a failure or bad idea – it just means that it’s not the right time to do it right now.

Some successful ones have been:

• Increasing the number of Health Passports given to care leavers from 50% to 95%
• Increasing Clinical Supervision at East Ham Care Centre from 70% to 95%

Why did you decide to get involved in QI in the beginning?

My roles within the Trust have always included an element of service re-design and delivery, so the QI work was just a natural progression – it’s exciting because it encompasses and builds on work that has been going on within teams and raises it up to another level, whilst giving the teams the structure in which to try new things.

What’s your favourite bit of the QI process/journey?

I’m one of those mad people that absolutely loves data! So give me a massive spreadsheet that needs analysing and charting and I’m on cloud nine!

What are your thoughts on working with C&H over the next year or so?

I’ve been shadowing Jen for a month and the work that I’ve seen going on in C&H so far is amazing – you guys are definitely leading the field and everyone I have met so far has been so welcoming so I’m very excited to be a part of this work for the next year.