Tuesday, March 21, 2017

The REsTRAIN YOURSELF programme has been shortlisted for a prestigious national Patient Safety award

The University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in partnership with the Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA), have been shortlisted for a prestigious national Patient Safety award following their programme to reduce restraint in acute mental health, known as ReSTRAIN YOURSELF.
Paul Greenwood, AQuA Improvement Advisor

The Patient Safety Awards, which are now in their 9th year, continue to recognise and reward outstanding practice within the NHS and independent healthcare organisations. UCLan and AQuA have been nominated in the Mental Health category. The REsTRAIN YOURSELF programme, which was funded by a grant from the Health Foundation, enabled UCLan as the lead partner and AQuA to work closely with mental health wards across the region to test and adapt an evidence based model called the 6 core strategies in the UK with a strong focus on trauma informed care. The evaluation work of this programme was undertaken by UCLan and together they have recently published a toolkit to support other organisations to reduce the use of restraint.

Paul Greenwood, Improvement Advisor at AQuA and lead for the REsTRAIN YOURSELF programmes said:

“I’m delighted that this work has been recognised by the Patient Safety awards. The partnership between AQuA and UCLan has started to build a really strong evidence base through the hard work of staff across the Trust’s in the region in reducing restraint in challenging environments. We hope that the toolkit we have recently developed will enable the learning to be spread across the UK and beyond.

“It’s an honour to be recognised alongside some other fantastic work in Mental Health and I’m looking forward to finding out the winner!”

Following their shortlist, the team will be travelling to London to present to the judges with the winners announced as part of the annual Patient Safety Congress which is being held in Manchester on the 4th and 5th July. 

We'd also like to congratulate the following members who also reached the awards shortlist:
  • Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 
  • Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust 
  • East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust 
  • Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust 
  • Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 
  • Liverpool Community Health NHS Trust 
  • Liverpool Heart and Chest NHS Foundation Trust 
  • Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust 
  • NHS East Lancashire CCG 
  • Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust 
  • St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust 
  • Stockport NHS Foundation Trust 
  • The Christie Hospital NHS Foundation Trust 
  • University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust 
  • Warrington and Halton NHS Foundation Trust 
  • Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust


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Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Blog - Joining the Improvement Mission - Jonathan Bevan

Jonathan Bevan, Project Manager
Jonathan Bevan joined AQuA at the start of 2017 as Project Manager for the Academy team. Here he reflects on his first few weeks in the role, and what he’s learned about the NHS and quality improvement so far…

Having previously worked alongside health service professionals and researchers in an academic environment, and with daily exposure to news stories about crises in the health and care sector, I have a good understanding of the pressures faced by my new colleagues in the NHS and beyond.

It may be a bit clichéd to talk of austerity limiting budgets and the ongoing need to ‘do more with less’, but this is the reality for health and care professionals. AQuA was established to help its members improve quality and increase efficiency in the delivery of health and care services.

The role AQuA has in helping improve outcomes for service users, as well as identifying and implementing cost saving opportunities, is invaluable, and I’m proud to have had the chance to join an organisation dedicated to addressing this need.

It took a while for me to gain an appreciation of the broad range of activities across the organisation, and its constituent programmes. AQuA’s structure and strategy is designed to adapt to reflect the changing landscape of health and care services, and AQuA’s ‘offer’ adapts to address national, regional and institutional priorities.

The mission of the AQuA Academy is to help build the capability and equip our members’ workforce with the skills and knowledge to identify and implement improvement work, by providing a programme of courses, coaching and mentoring opportunities.

Like in previous years, the programme is designed to cater for staff at all levels of an organisation, by offering four ‘levels’ of support from junior staff to board level. This reflects our belief that improvement is everyone’s business.

We’re currently designing our AQuA Academy 2017/2018 programme of courses, coaching and mentoring opportunities. It’s been a useful time for me to be getting started, as I’m able to be involved in the planning and to provide input from the start of a new ‘business cycle’.

In the new programme, the Academy will continue to offer innovative and inspiring core and bespoke courses on quality improvement, delivered by experts with experience of the sector.

Uniquely, I think Academy events usually involve two facilitators, which means that delegates can benefit from the advice and attention of two experts during group work. It’s also worth noting here that the involvement of our Lived Experience Panel also provides delegates with invaluable perspectives from service users, patients, carers and families.

It’s clear to me that these events provide fantastic development opportunities, represent excellent value for members, and the AQuA offering compares favourably with other management consultancies.

Finally, I’d like to thank my new colleagues for the welcome I’ve had to AQuA. I’m impressed by their expertise, their attitude and their commitment to providing training and consultancy to members and partners.

I’m excited by the prospect of working in this team, and the opportunity to bring my experience, skills and ideas to help continue AQuA’s mission.