Eleven teams around the UK have won awards from the Health Foundation’s prestigious new award scheme Closing the Gap through Clinical Communities.
This new award will promote improvement in healthcare quality by showing how it is possible to close the gap between evidence based best practice and current practice.
Stephen Thornton, Chief Executive at the Health Foundation said, “We believe there needs to be a sustained focus on continuous improvement in the quality of health services. Leaders need to know about and be competent in leading for improvement and we need to understand what approaches work. It is critical that clinicians are fully engaged in efforts to improve quality - that this is part of their day job.”
The award will help to build the knowledge and skills of clinical teams in how to make improvements which is essential if clinicians are to improve quality.
The 11 teams that have been selected for the award went through a rigorous and competitive process and have identified areas with significant potential to improve quality.
The clinicians and teams have chosen the area of care that they want to improve. Clinicians are directly involved with patient care and are therefore best placed to know where there are currently gaps in the service and where there is potential to improve, based on authoritative best practice.
The quality improvement projects will be led by clinicians who have a track record as influential leaders in their clinical networks and will lead a multi-disciplinary team. Working with multi-organisations that include patients they will aim to spread and sustain their improvement work after the life of the award.
The projects cover a wide range of issues including improving the care of people with chronic kidney disease, using quality networks to improve mental health services, reducing inpatient falls and improving quality and safety in primary care.
Martin Marshall, Director of Clinical Quality at the Health Foundation said, “Clinicians have a vital role in driving improvement. As the people who work with patients, they are the ones who can really improve care at a local level. We want to support clinicians and clinical teams that aim to bridge the gap between current and best practice as this will deliver better care for patients. These awards will help to provide clinicians with the skills and confidence to take on responsibility for quality improvement in clinical care.”
The Closing the Gap awards will have a different focus each year and this year is the first round of awards. Each project will run for two years from 2010 to 2012 and will receive an award of £475k over the two years.
Part of the award will go towards paying for learning and development for the teams. This will be flexible and take into account the experience, knowledge and skills of individuals in the team and the structure of the project. Berkshire Consultancy will be supporting the award holders throughout the programme. By the end of the award all award holders will have learnt from quality improvement experts and will have developed their skills and knowledge in leading quality improvement.
More information on the Closing the Gap through Clinical Communities’ awards and information on the individual projects can be found on the Health Foundation website: www.health.org.uk
Notes to editors
The Health Foundation wants to make the quality of healthcare in the UK the best it can be. Working with others, we are helping to shape a future healthcare system that offers safe, effective and responsive care for all. We are a charitable foundation and operate independently from government, political parties or other interest groups. We seek out the best people in healthcare and support them to learn and share with others. Through projects, research and evaluation studies we test and measure new ways of improving health services for the future. We seek to influence healthcare decision-makers so that we achieve sustainable and widespread improvements in the quality of patient care.