Training healthcare professionals in quality improvement

Abstract

The Academy of Medical Royal College's report Quality improvement - training for better outcomes sets a path for the normalisation of quality improvement as part of all health professionals' jobs. This accompanies similar calls to action by the King's Fund and the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management and is aligned with NHS Improvement and Health Education England future strategies. These exhortations to action come on the backdrop of increased fiscal constraints within the NHS, low morale, a burgeoning volume of research evidence and audit outputs and increasing complexity of how we deliver care in a bewildering NHS landscape. Asking the question 'how can we do something better?' or 'do we really need to do this?', and building our resilience and capability to respond effectively gives us new purpose, the right skills and a means to influence and make a difference to the safety, -effectiveness and experience of patient care. Most importantly, we do this through harnessing the talents of -multiprofessional teams - with meaningful patient involvement - to rediscover the joy and optimism in our work and what truly motivates us and to see this translated into improved sustainable outcomes for our patients and our working days.

Keywords: Healthcare professionals; interprofessional learning; quality improvement; training.