Skilled for improvement?
Learning communities and the skills needed to improve care: an evaluative service development
March 2014
Key points
- Applying the techniques of improvement science alone is unlikely to be sufficient to deliver sustained quality improvements in healthcare.
- Any organisation wishing to improve quality – whatever its starting point – must invest in developing the three sets of skills: ‘technical’, ‘soft’ and ‘learning’ skills.
- Developing these skills must be a central part of managers’ and practitioners’ roles – not just a marginal ‘add on’.
- Strong and sustained institutional support is necessary to create an organisational environment that is conducive to improvement.
- Improvement work should not underestimate the influence of key individuals who can either drive projects forward or hold them back.
- Strong leadership is vital.
- Improvement projects require in-built flexibility to adapt to changing realities.
- Differences or lack of engagement and partnership working between various sectors and disciplines can determine the success of improvement interventions.
- It is generally easier to move forward with an improvement project when it coincides with existing work streams.
This report tells the story of the Learning Communities Initiative, in which an experienced research team used an action approach (combining action research and action learning) to study four improvement projects across two sites, while working with participants to facilitate the flow of knowledge and learning.
The authors identify three sets of skills – ‘technical’, ‘soft’ and ‘learning’ skills – that they found were essential for successful implementation of improvement. They use the analogy of a three-sided pyramid: to reach the point of sustained improvement (the apex of the pyramid), the organisational base (environment, culture, structures and resources) should be broad and solid enough to support the construction of the three ‘walls’ (each of the three sets of skills) to the same (maximum) height.
Further reading
Research report
The four health systems of the United Kingdom
This report assesses the performance of the NHS on the quality of patient care in all four UK countries since devolution.
You might also like...
Invitation to tender
ITT: Summative Evaluation of the Flow Coaching Academy Programme
The deadline for responses is 12.00 on Tuesday 5 November 2019.
Press release
New funding for diagnostic equipment falls considerably below what is needed
Health Foundation response to the Prime Minister’s announcement of funding for cancer screening.
Blog
A combined effort for autism: lessons from the community for the health system
Research shows 88% of autistic people do not think their needs are understood by health professionals. Emily Niner and Oliver...
Get social
Health Foundation @HealthFdn
Have you read our briefing on people's long-term condition #selfmanagement and their use of health care? Our resea… https://t.co/kS5Elymt9a
Follow us on TwitterWork with us
We look for talented and passionate individuals as everyone at the Health Foundation has an important role to play.
View current vacanciesThe Q Community
Q is an initiative connecting people with improvement expertise across the UK.
Find out more