Seven teams selected to scale up health care improvement

Seven teams have been selected by the Health Foundation to scale up health care improvement across the UK

Seven health care projects have been selected by the Health Foundation to be part of its £3.5 million improvement programme Scaling Up Improvement.

The Scaling Up Improvement programme aims to improve health care delivery and/or the way people manage their own care through the delivery of successful health care improvement interventions at scale.  

The project teams from across the UK will take health care ideas, interventions and approaches that have been tested and shown to improve care at a small scale and deliver them at a larger scale.

Each round of the programme will run for two and a half years and each project will receive up to £500,000 of funding to support the implementation and evaluation of the work.

The selected projects will each be led by one organisation working in partnership with a wide range of organisations including acute hospitals, Clinical Commissioning Groups, Royal Colleges, Academic Health Science Networks, Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRCs), universities, charities, national bodies and local government.

The longer term aim is for projects to be sustained beyond the life of the original project and have wider adoption across the UK health service.

This is the second round of the programme. The first round of Scaling Up Improvement projects started in 2015.

The selection of these projects is currently subject to contracts being finalised with the lead organisation of each project.

The projects are:

1) Implementing a programme of shared haemodialysis care

Lead organisation: Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 

This project involves extending the benefits of shared haemodialysis care to around 1,200 people who attend 12 UK dialysis centres. It aims to improve outcomes for these patients, improve the experience of those who choose to dialyse at hospital, and give more patients the confidence to choose home dialysis.

2) Helping young people THRIVE: a person-centred model of care for young people’s mental health

Lead organisation: Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust

i-THRIVE is an integrated, person-centred model of child and adolescent mental health care that enables services to be delivered according to the needs and preferences of young people and their families. This project involves implementing the model across four additional sites across NELFT NHS Foundation Trust.

3) InS:PIRE – Intensive care Syndrome: Promoting Independence and Return to Employment

Lead organisation: NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

InS:PIRE is a five-week rehabilitation programme for intensive care unit survivors. This project involves scaling up InS:PIRE by implementing it in five centres across four health boards in Scotland, with the aim of improving the health of these patients and increasing how in control they feel about their health and wellbeing.

4) Integrating mental, physical and social care in long-term conditions

Lead organisations: King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

3 Dimensions of Care for Diabetes (3DFD) is a successful programme that has effectively integrated social support with diabetes and mental health care. 3 Dimensions for Long-term Conditions (3DLC) will scale up 3DFD by integrating medical, psychological and social care for people in Lambeth and Southwark who have other long-term conditions.

5) FREED-UP: First Episode and Rapid Early Intervention Service for Young People with Eating Disorders – Upscaled

Lead organisation: South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

FREED is a programme for young people with eating disorders that has been shown to reduce waiting times for treatment and the duration of untreated disorders. FREED-UP will implement the programme across four specialist eating disorder services and develop evidence for the scalability of the approach.

6) A multi-centre quality improvement project to reduce the incidence of obstetric anal sphincter injury

Lead organisation: Croydon Health Services NHS Trust

A package of interventions combined with a skills development module has been shown to decrease rates of obstetric anal sphincter injury (OASI) following childbirth. This project involves implementing a care bundle and skills development module in maternity units, with the aim of standardising practice and ultimately reducing the rate of OASI in the UK.

7) Scaling up for safety: standardising the lessons learnt from a hip fracture quality improvement programme

Lead organisation: Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

HIP QIP, a hip fracture quality improvement programme, has been running in Northumbria for five years. This project involves replicating the learning from HIP QIP through supporting four other acute hospital trusts to provide safe, high-quality care for hip fracture patients via a pathway approach that ensures consistency of care.