In August, a small team from ASPH were very fortunate to attend the four-day Patient Safety Officer training course facilitated by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI).
The course was provided by the KSS Academic Health Science Network (AHSN), and the team were joined by over 50 colleagues from across the region in learning the fundamentals of QI and patient safety. The course was available to ASPH by the AHSN as part our work together to develop increased capability for safety and quality improvement within the locality.
This was a fantastic opportunity for members of the ASPH team to receive high-quality teaching from the IHI on a range of subjects, as well as providing us with the chance to work together on a number of ideas for our own QI projects and to discuss how we could work with the leadership team to bring about a number of changes in the organisational culture.
We asked Alex Bell; Lead Midwife for Maternity Services at ASPH to share her reflections of the course:
“So, did we change the world and achieve greatness on the Accelerated Patient Safety Programme? No! But we did explore how to support and empower our leaders and teams to develop strategies to embed those practices and behaviours essential to shifting our safety culture one step at a time.
Over four days patient safety teams from KSS worked collaboratively and investigated how creating an environment where our teams identify those practices and behaviours that inhibit them from driving our safety agenda can improve patient safety, care and experience for both patients and staff.
One team, one challenge, one day at a time – making it count.
This appropriately dubbed ‘psychological safety’ encourages freedom to speak up which equals improved safety for all.
The programme also explored how leadership, and the visibility of that leadership. within our teams is paramount in supporting the improvement in those practices and behaviours and delivering the care patients expect to receive and we expect to give.
Overall a fantastic programme with some exciting ideas to introduce to our individual teams over the coming weeks – watch this space.
One team taking one challenge on one day be courageous start small and start today”
Alex Bell; Lead Midwife for Joan Booker, Gynae and GUM – @X5ODA
Thanks to everyone who attended the course and, if you are interested in attending similar training events in the future, or would like to learn more – please get in touch.
Be the Change 