The improvement journey Why organisation-wide improvement in health care matters, and how to get started

May 2019

Bryan Jones

Tim Horton

Will Warburton

Publication

Learning report

Leadership

Quality improvement

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Key points

Building an organisation-wide approach to improvement is a journey that can take several years. It requires corporate investment in infrastructure, staff capability and culture over the long-term.
An essential early step is securing the support and commitment of the board for a long-term programme, including their willingness to finance the skills and infrastructure development needed to implement it.
The report includes case studies of three English NHS trusts with an outstanding CQC rating that have implemented an organisational approach to improvement.

This report is a practical guide to developing an organisation-wide approach to improvement. It summarises the benefits of such an approach and outlines the key elements and steps that NHS trust leaders should adopt when pursuing this agenda.

The report draws on the learning and insights that the Health Foundation has generated over the past 15 years from funding and evaluating improvement at team, organisation and system level.

Developing an organisational approach to improvement in health care is a journey that can take several years. We've created a poster that shows the six key steps in the improvement journey.