AQuA Lived Experience Affiliate Starts Nursing Training

The Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA) is delighted to share news that Carl O’Loughlin, one of our Lived Experience Affiliates, will be taking his first step into nursing as he begins his training to become a Mental Health nurse at the University of Chester in February 2018.

Carl O'Loughlin, Lived Experience Affiliate

Carl, who started his career training to be a Chartered Accountant, has worked alongside our staff and members for a number of years, to help design our programmes and offers, and ensure patient experience is at the heart of our work. To support him during his studies, Carl has also been awarded one of the prestigious Margaret Parkinson Scholarship’s from the Royal College of Nursing Foundation.

Speaking on the news, Carl said:

“I am absolutely delighted to have been offered a place to begin my Mental Health Nursing degree. I am passionate about mental health care and I want to use my own personal lived experience of severe mental illness to try and make a difference to others suffering similar problems.

“My 'lived experience' roles at the Advancing Quality Alliance, Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and CLARCH North West Coast have provided me with invaluable experience and have certainly been the driving force behind me wanting to become a mental health nurse.

“I am also extremely proud and honoured to have been awarded a Margaret Parkinson Scholarship from the Royal College of Nursing Foundation which will support me throughout the 3 years of the course.”

Paul Greenwood, Mental Health Improvement Advisor, said:

“We’re really pleased for Carl and wish him all the best as he takes his first step into nursing. It is a pleasure to work alongside him as part of our Lived Experience Panel as he brings such a wealth of experience to our work, both from his previous career as an accountant and through his own personal experience of mental health.

“We’re delighted that the work with us inspired him to take this decision, and I know he’ll have a lot to offer when he qualifies in the years to come.”

Carl will continue to work with us through the Lived Experience Panel throughout his training. To find out more about the panel, please visit our website, or contact Paul.Greenwood@srft.nhs.uk.

WATCH - Whole System Flow – Pecha Kucha Style

We’re pleased to bring you an exciting ‘Pecha Kucha’ video sharing some of our work and learning around Whole System Flow, presented by our Flow Programme Facilitator Scott Gregory. 

Scott Gregory, Flow Programme Facilitator

What is a 'Pecha Kucha'? It’s Japanese for ‘chit-chat’, and used to describe a fast-paced and concise presentation where 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each, with a total run-time of six minutes 40 seconds.

On the back of our 18-month flow discovery programme with The Health Foundation, Scott shares some of our key learning from this, including some do’s and don’ts to successful flow, as well how this has evolved into our new 2017/18 Flow – Improving System Pathways programme with members.

Watch his presentation here

Scott adds:

“Since starting our initial work with The Health Foundation, we’ve really learnt a lot about flow and the many complexities of improving this in practice, and how it often means different things depending on your role and setting.

“Whilst it was quite a challenge to condense so much of this into a Pecha Kucha presentation, it also helped to keep it to our key learning points and what we think is really useful to members.

“We’re now looking to build on and test this work further with members across three pilot systems in Liverpool, Bolton, and Wigan hope to share how some of these findings can help improve care and outcomes for patients across our members and wider partners.”

Feel free to share your thoughts on the presentation via Twitter at @AQuA_NHS, or with Scott directly via @SG_AQuA.

For more information on Flow, please contact out Wendy Lewis, Flow Lead, on Wendy.Lewis@srft.nhs.uk.

Three More AQuA Staff Selected for Health Foundation Q Community

The Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA) is pleased to announce three of our staff are among the latest selected to join The Health Foundation’s prestigious Q Community.

(L-R) Cathryn Sloan, Wendy Lewis, and Wendy Stobbs

Cathryn Sloan, Wendy Lewis, and Wendy Stobbs join the exciting community, which aims to bring together improvement practitioners from across the UK to share ideas, learning and best practice to support improvement projects and innovation.

Speaking on the announcement, Lesley Massey, Director, said:

“Q is a fantastic initiative and I’m delighted to see three more of my colleagues join the community. We now have eight staff within their ranks, and this is a real testament to their knowledge and experience within the quality improvement landscape.

“We were also pleased to see a number of our members across the North West in this latest intake, and I think this just shows the drive and skill for improving health and care across the region.

“AQuA work closely with The Health Foundation on a number of initiatives. We’re thrilled to support Q in creating a national movement for quality improvement, and I look forward to seeing it grow in the future.”

Cathryn Sloan, Head of System Transformation, said:

“It’s great to be a part of Q and to be joining so many talented colleagues within health and social care across the country. Q now has over 1000 members and I’m looking forward to the chance to meet other members, and to share new ideas and perspectives on how we can make care better for patients.”

The three join Elizabeth Bradbury, Emma Walker, Amanda Huddleston, Liz Kanwar who were in last year’s intake, as well as founding member Andrea McGuinness.

This most recent intake was for the Innovation Agency (formerly North West Coast Academic Health Science Network) footprint, and their ranks are expected to grow further when the Greater Manchester AHSN intake is announced in August.

For more information about Q, including a full directory of members, visit the Q Community website. You can also follow updates on Twitter via @theQCommunity.

Blog - The Promise of Manager-Clinician Partnerships in the NHS

Andrew Wilson is a Senior Business Intelligence Analyst at AQuA. Following his visit to April’s International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare in London, he shares his thoughts on how the NHS needs to bridge the gap between clinicians and managers…

Andy Wilson

There were many fault lines that scarred society in 2016. Deep divisions between young and old, town and country, were evident across the social fabric of these shores throughout the last year. When we think back to the world of 2015, it feels more distant rather than a mere eighteen months ago.

Whilst there is no doubt that, like any other area of government, the process of leaving the European Union will have a significant impact on healthcare, the opening paragraph was not written with Brexit in mind.

Whilst Brexit will undoubtedly have an impact on the NHS, the focus of this blog is on junior doctors. In early 2016, the junior doctors’ strikes were leading news stories for several weeks. Strong opinions were held on both sides of the argument about the morality of the strikes, their impact on patients, the main protestations of junior doctors and who is responsible for this disagreement reaching this point.

Whichever side or viewpoint you took on the junior doctors’ strikes, I’m sure that you would agree that these are the clinicians who in five, ten or twenty years from now will be clinical leaders across the NHS.

Throw into the mix the pressure the NHS will be suffering over the next decade, a larger population with greater healthcare needs, you could be forgiven for thinking that the chasm between junior doctor and management of the NHS is not traversable.

Learning from Guy’s and St Thomas’ example

At the Quality Forum conference I was fortunate enough to attend a presentation by Joanne Ward (a deputy general manager) and Chris Meadows (a Critical Care Consultant) at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

Joanne spoke of how she felt it was critical that she spent more time in the clinical setting she was managing, to better understand the work the clinical team undertook, and their perspective of how the NHS functioned.

Chris told delegates of his experience as a new consultant, attempting to encourage his juniors to develop a better understanding of the work NHS managers do, and how the NHS functions. He also spoke about how their roles cross paths, and how the Trust had developed a programme to pair similar junior doctors and NHS managers, with the idea of letting them lead on a quality improvement project.

The programme consisted of a series of workshops and shadowing of roles to match managers and clinicians. The result of this was to have a formidable partnership that could engage with fellow clinicians to establish the underlying problem affecting patient care and work with managers to explore all options to achieve an improvement. Joanne and Chris also went on to talk about the various achievements of these partnerships had had at the Trust.

Hope for positive partnerships

So despite the picture of doom I painted earlier in this, I want to stress that here is just one (and I’m sure there are many more) tangible example of quality improvement working alongside the clinical leaders of tomorrow.

The gains in fostering more of these Manager-Clinician relationships are potentially massive in patient and experience terms, and there is a simplicity to their work financially too.

Link junior doctors with people who have the capability to change patient pathways, and you can achieve improved patient outcomes and a more engaged staff.

The King's Fund Improving Quality Publication

On 23 February, The King’s Fund published a paper called ‘Improving Quality in the English NHS’ in which it called for an overarching quality improvement strategy for the whole of England.

In the report, The King's Fund highlighted AQuA's work as a regional quality improvement organisation and how we support NHS organisations through shared learning, as well how AQuA's work might support the development of a national strategy (pages 19 and 21).

Chris Ham, Chief Executive of The Kings Fund, also published a blog, again identifying AQuA's existing support on improvement collaboratives, and also referenced the newly established UK Improvement Alliance (UKIA), of which AQuA is one of the founding members. 




We are delighted to receive this national recognition from The King's Fund and will continue to develop our work in Quality Improvement on both a regional and national level.

Response to the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) Report for Sepsis

The Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA), a quality improvement body based in the North West of England, welcomes the findings of the recent NCEPOD report, ‘Just Say Sepsis!’

Sepsis is a severe and life threatening illness caused by the body’s exaggerated response to an infection. It is a significant cause of death and long-term health problems.  In the North West sepsis is responsible for around 13,500 hospital admissions and 3,500 deaths every year. Early recognition and prompt management can improve survival and reduce the risk of long term complications. 

The Advancing Quality (AQ) Team, based within AQuA began working with 14 Acute Trusts across the North West in September 2014 to help to improve care for patients with sepsis. To support this, a measure set was developed with 9 measures that cover the key steps in management of patients with sepsis. The measure set has 5 main aims:

1. Ensuring patients with infection have an early triage and assessment for sepsis.
2. If sepsis is present, a series of investigations and treatments are carried out.
3. If sepsis is present, the severity is graded.
4. If there are signs of severe sepsis, a senior doctor should assess the patient.
5. Ensuring ongoing monitoring of patients with sepsis.

Dr Emmanuel Nsetebu

Dr Emmanuel Nsutebu, AQ Sepsis Clinical co-lead and AQuA Patient Safety Fellow who participated in the NCEPOD review process is pleased with progress in the North West:

“The work being done in the North West is already addressing a number of recommendations which were included in the NCEPOD Report. By working with a number of Trusts across the North West, this allows us to undertake a collaborative approach to ensure that patients, no matter which hospital they visit, receive the same high standard of care for sepsis. Following the publication of the report, the AQ sepsis programme will review the recommendations and I am confident that we are in a strong position to deliver on most of these.

Organisations which are part of the AQ sepsis programme are regularly monitored on their performance in delivering all AQ sepsis measures. The data is shared amongst participating organisations on a monthly basis. Externally audited performance data is also published bi-annually at www.advancingqualitynw.nhs.uk. In addition to improving care, the AQ sepsis programme aims to improve clinical coding of the condition.

Dr Conor McGrath

Dr Conor McGrath, Clinical Co-lead for AQ sepsis and Consultant in critical care medicine explains:

“We are working hard to make sure that clinical coding for sepsis in the North West is improving. The programme aims to raise awareness of the condition and how to accurately reflect this in medical documentation. The programme also works with clinical coders to ensure a consistent approach to coding across participating organisations. Our data has shown that organisations that are part of the AQ sepsis program already have a higher level of coding for sepsis compared to the hospitals that are not participating.”  

The work of the Advancing Quality team continues to drive improvement to patient care in the North West, through strong clinical engagement, implementation of best practice, high quality data and working in collaboration across a number or conditions. More information about the team and the work that they do can be found at www.advancingqualitynw.nhs.uk.

- ENDS -

• For further information or to request an interview please contact, Katie Stephenson, Head of Communications and Marketing at AQuA on katie.stephenson@srft.nhs.uk or 0161 206 8025
• A full copy of the NCEPOD Sepsis report ‘Just Say Sepsis’ can be found at www.ncepod.org.uk/2015sepsis.htm