Susan Hannah Head of the Children and Young People Improvement Collaborative

About me

Susan is a GenerationQ Fellow and Head of the Children and Young People Improvement Collaborative, Scottish Government.

She has a background in high care nursing and was lead for quality improvement and patient safety at NHS Ayrshire and Arran, while training as an Improvement Adviser with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

She joined the Scottish Government in 2013, where she is Head of the Children and Young People Improvement Collaborative, a national, multi-agency programme that brings together improvement communities from health and children’s services. It aims to improve the health and wellbeing of children from pre-birth to 18 years, and reduce health inequalities and the poverty gap.

As director of the programme, Susan works across government policy areas, local authorities, health board systems and the third sector to influence the progress of quality improvement work.

Through GenerationQ, Susan is looking forward to the opportunity to connect, learn and share with other senior leaders with a shared professional interest in change and quality across a range of professional settings. ‘I believe the GenerationQ fellowship will provide the support and challenge I need to advance my knowledge and build new skills, from which I will be empowered to push the boundaries further and achieve the ambition that I have for the national programme.’

Susan is aiming to take forward work with one locality in Scotland to establish the structures that will enable a learning system approach to be fully adopted. The learning from this will be transferable to others who are working to achieve similar structures. She believes that participation in GenerationQ will ‘enhance my ability to support this maturing culture for quality improvement across Scotland’.