Encouraging more teenagers to use sexual health services, reducing dental waiting times and making it easier for patients to contact us, were the focus of three projects included in our first QI Together programme.
Our first cohort started work on their projects in August and a celebration event was held at Trinity House, Ashford, to applaud all that has been achieved.
The programme is run by the Quality Improvement (QI) Team at Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust and includes a mixture of classroom days, the QI Team visiting work bases, action learning sets and masterclasses on QI tools. It is run over nine months.
Associate Director Business Development and Service Improvement Natalie Parkinson welcomed those who went along, with Chief Executive Mairead McCormick attending virtually to hear about all the good work. Head of Improvement Programmes Sarah Donovan handed out certificates.
The first cohort included 13 project teams from across the trust, with other projects including: reducing missed appointments within the East Sussex School Health Service, increasing use of the Kent and Medway Care Record and improving colleague wellbeing.
The event included short presentations on each project, networking and celebratory cake.
Sarah Donovan said: “Those on the course worked really well and developed themselves as a community around learning and supporting each other through the challenges.
“It was great to see the wide scope of QI working in practice, with projects covering a really broad spectrum from colleague wellbeing, increasing system usage, financial efficiencies and increasing patient contact options.”
Helen Ballard, Admin Operations Manager with the East Sussex School Health Service, was one of the attendees. She said: “The QI Together programme was great. I learnt lots and met new people and the QI Team was very supportive. Our project was around do not attends (DNAs) and to reduce the DNA rate from 30 per cent to 5 per cent. We have seen the DNA rate go down which is great.”
Registered Pharmacy Technician Katie Ogilvie also attended. She said: “Myself and my colleague Jane work for the Integrated Pharmacy Team and ran a project aimed at increasing referrals to our service from East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, so we could support patients sooner with medication post-hospital discharge.
“The QI team steered us through this process providing regular support and guidance and were amazingly knowledgeable and patient. We have learnt so much about implementing a QI project, how to use QI tools and how to gather and present data and would really recommend the QI Together course to anyone considering a QI project.”