Following Harriet’s excellent blog for World Kindness Day in November, a few members of Team ASPH were involved in a conversation to see how we could indeed “start an epidemic” of kindness in our organisation and beyond. It was from here that the idea of a Kindness Advent Calendar was born. You can access the … More Small Acts of Kindness – A personal reflection

We have written here and elsewhere about the human side of change and our experience that improvement can only flourish in an environment in which teams are supported and where good leadership-for-improvement is in place. This case also seems to be supported by NHS Improvement in their national framework for improvement-skill-building and leadership development – … More The case for kindness

Burnout for staff working in the NHS is well-documented and feels like it has never been worse.  We also know that staff turnover rates are increasing, in part because of this burnout, and this leads to increasing risk of accidents and patient safety incidents. The ‘Be the Change’ team are big fans of this white … More Joy in work

Last week, ASPH launched its very own End PJ Paralysis campaign.  If you are not familiar with the campaign you can read more about it here – https://www.england.nhs.uk/blog/jane-cummings-32/ The ASPH campaign was a success in raising awareness of a really important issue for patient care; but also in bringing teams together, harnessing their creativity and … More We need to talk about PJs

Last month a number of the ASPH team were fortunate to complete the ‘Improvement Coach Professional Development Program’ run by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). The course is a 12-week programme, designed to further develop improvement knowledge and skills in coaching and facilitating improvement teams.  It was a great course and the latest in … More Five key learning points about quality improvement

I was delighted to read this article by Professor Sir Mike Richards, Chief Inspector of Hospitals for Care Quality Commission (CQC) in which he explains the importance of compassionate and inclusive leadership.  Sir Mike explains how, through the CQC programme of inspecting acute hospitals, it has become “increasingly clear that one of the strongest indicators … More Driving improvement through compassionate leadership and staff engagement

Earlier this year, a number of the ASPH team were fortunate to attend the International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare, which this year was held in London.  It was a great event, attended by over 3,000 delegates from around the world. We asked one member of our team, Keshav Nambiar, Leadership Fellow & Registrar … More Igniting Collective Excellence

Since 2014, we have been supporting junior doctors at ASPH with their learning about, and practice of, quality improvement in healthcare.  Although the Foundation Year One (F1) doctors are with us for only a short time, we believe there are significant benefits for everyone in providing excellent teaching and support for their QI ideas. The … More Adopt a Grandparent – Ideas into action

The 2014 Berwick report recommended that “The NHS should continually and forever reduce patient harm by embracing wholeheartedly an ethic of learning” and that the “NHS should become a learning organisation. Its leaders should create and support the capability for learning, and therefore change, at scale, within the NHS.” We have been thinking a lot … More What we need to build capability for QI

This month, we wanted to bring your attention to this blog from a member of the IHI faculty, and our friend, Michael Pugh. Michael was a member of the IHI faculty who spent time with us, the ASPH board and other teams last year and we learnt a huge amount from his experience and knowledge … More Are you a manager or a leader?