Shine: Improving the value of local healthcare services How healthcare teams took on the challenge to improve quality while reducing the cost of services

The report shows what can be done at a local level to improve quality and reduce costs with a relatively small amount of money and within a short timescale of just over a year.

It demonstrates the effectiveness of clinically-led improvement projects to improve services. Local clinical leaders were able to identify known quality issues and get their peers on board using local data to demonstrate the problem, with a solution appropriate to their context.

Although difficult to categorise due to the varied nature of the interventions, the report groups the Shine projects into four broad categories, depending on the primary focus of the intervention being tested, and summarises the lessons learned. The categories are:

• using information technology to improve services (7 projects)
• changing the way services are organised (12 projects)
• improving access to information for patients and clinicians (5 projects)
• supporting and training staff (8 projects).

The report gives a flavour of the types of idea that got off the ground and the impact they had within participating organisations. It offers clinical teams and those looking for innovative quality improvement ideas practical examples of how to reduce costs within their service area, while at the same time maintaining or improving quality.