News & Updates
Ep3 Role of the Board | Celebrating 10 years of QI at ELFT
21 February 2024
Explore the role of the board in leading improvement. Consider how to help a board see the relevance and need for quality improvement and delve into the transition that a board needs to make as it evolves to adopt an improvement approach. Examine what has enabled the ELFT board to retain an improvement mindset and… Read More
A collaborative approach to reducing inpatient bed occupancy in Bedfordshire & Luton
7 February 2024
By Lucy Brewer (Senior Improvement Advisor) Bedfordshire and Luton Adult Mental Health provide a wide range of community and inpatient services across these areas. These services include crisis teams, community mental health teams (CMHTs), and inpatient mental health wards. As with many services across the country, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic saw an increase… Read More
Co-production lies at the heart of our improvement work
7 February 2024
At East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT), we believe in the power of co-production. We understand that the key to successful improvement work lies in the hands of those who use our services, in addition it is 2.8 times more likely that an aim will succeed if there is Big I* service user involvement (Kostel… Read More
Using Quality Improvement to tackle environmental sustainability
7 February 2024
By Sarah McAllister – Senior Improvement Advisor East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) aims to reduce direct greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2025 and indirect emissions by 40% by 2036. This ambitious aim is being supported through a programme of work that uses quality improvement (QI) methods to understand our problem, develop a change… Read More
Ep 2 | Role of executive leadership in adopting improvement | Celebrating 10 years of QI at ELFT
7 February 2024
Discover how adopting Quality Improvement impacts on the day-to-day behaviours and work practices of an executive and delve into the leadership behaviours that support improvement. Join a discussion featuring Dr Amar Shah, Chief Quality Officer at ELFT, Pedro Delgado, Vice President at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Kevin Cleary, formerly Chief Medical Officer at ELFT,… Read More
Understanding and improving the recruitment process
6 February 2024
By Edmund Glynn, Senior Improvement Advisor for ICS ELFT is committed to developing a process for recruiting new staff that is smooth, fast and efficient. Delays in a recruitment episode risk frustrating managers and applicants alike. The recruitment team at ELFT have known this more than anyone, and work extremely hard to make the process… Read More
Patient safety – adopting a learning and improving approach
5 February 2024
By Auzewell Chitewe, Associate Director of Quality Improvement Over the past year, the Director of Patient Safety, the Risk and Governance Team, the Legal team, nursing and medical leaders, adult mental health services in Bedfordshire & Luton, as well as the Associate Director of Quality Improvement, have been deploying quality improvement (QI) methods to enhance… Read More
Improving Value: Cost and Waste Reduction through Quality Improvement Initiatives
5 February 2024
By Katherine Brittin, Associate Director of Quality Improvement Improving value for the community we serve is one of the Trust’s strategic objectives. There are many efforts around the Trust that use QI methods to reduce waste in the system. To help teams to work through how they can reduce and avoid unnecessary costs through improvement… Read More
Improving observation practice and therapeutic engagement across inpatient wards at ELFT – The opportunity of using Quality Improvement at Scale
5 February 2024
Providing a safe and therapeutically engaging environment is one of the core components that support service users’ recovery on inpatient mental health wards. Although observations of service users by staff are important in helping achieve this, without meaningful interaction they can be reduced to a form of surveillance which can hinder recovery. Observations should be… Read More
A Smaller Carbon Footprint and Reduced Cost: Luton Crisis Team’s Medication Waste QI Project
30 January 2024
By Maryam Chohan, Crisis Team Pharmacist Figure 1: Project team, graduating from the Improvement Leaders Programme. Kirsty Williams (Clinical Lead) – left, Maryam Chohan (CRHT Pharmacist) – centre, Bamidele Bello (CRHT nurse) – right. Where We Started In autumn last year (2022) I identified that medication waste was an issue in our team. Medication… Read More
Ep 1 | Infrastructure for Improvement | Celebrating 10 years of QI at ELFT
22 January 2024
Discover how the infrastructure for Quality Improvement at East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) has evolved, and what enables and supports teams and individuals to apply improvement in their daily work. Join a discussion featuring Dr Amar Shah, Chief Quality Officer at ELFT, Pedro Delgado from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and Auzewell Chitewe, Katherine… Read More
My experience of the Improvement Leaders’ Programme
12 December 2023
Sheila Menzies (people participation lead for Beds and Luton) has eventually taken the plunge and joined the Improvement Leaders Programme this year and is “loving it”. Sheila is a well known intrinsic improver who works hard to ensure our service users are involved in improvement work. Through the ILP she feels she is gaining a… Read More
