Quality Cluster Leads in Primary Care

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Cluster Quality Leads from GP practices across NHS Lothian met on Wednesday 26th April to discuss quality improvement in primary care.

The group discussed key themes for quality improvement, including pharmacy and anticipatory care planning. They also spoke about resources that would be required to complete this work and recognised the importance of sharing ideas and learning between clusters.

There was a recognition of both the challenges in primary care and the potential opportunities of quality improvement work.

Tracey Gillies, Executive Medical Director, spoke about the different definitions and dimensions of quality:

"Some of us think mainly about safety when we think about quality... for other people it's more about the triple aim, how we get population health gains, and better experience and value of care... others take it to the individual level... what matters to you?... getting that citizen voice about what they think good care looks like... the QOF description was more around effective care, what does good care look like? And how do we ensure we are working to that standard?"

Planning for Quality Cohort 3 Final Day

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The final day of the third cohort of Planning for Quality was on Tuesday 25th April. The group were joined by the Chief Executive of NHS Lothian, alongside QI coaches and analysts to hear presentations from each of the quality improvement groups on the course.

There were a wide range of presentations from different specialities across health and social care. This ranged from projects focusing on making the most of administrative staff time in a GP practice to improving reported discharges at the morning huddle at Lothian's largest acute hospital site.

Some of the participants reflected on what they had gained from being part of the Academy:

'It has been an interesting new way of looking at improving the service' Sam Patton, Orthopaedic Consultant

'We are relieved to be invited to be a part of this process because that now gives us the opportunity to do some of the work that we know needs to be done' Nick Church, Endoscopy Consultant

BMJ Quality publishing licences now launched!

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The quality team at NHS Lothian have procured unlimited access to BMJ Quality publishing for all NHS Lothian staff.

This is an excellent opportunity for you to get your work professionally published and shared with a wider audience.

In order to gain access to BMJ Quality, please go to http://quality.bmj.com/redeemcodeuser and select the 'Redeem access code' button.

 Please follow the instructions and when prompted, enter access code: 7236075160

NHS Lothian Chief Quality Officer appointment

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In order to provide high quality, high value care for people today and in the future, NHS Lothian is creating an enhanced whole organisation approach to quality assurance and improvement.

This is a major undertaking and so, to lead this ambitious and important work, I am delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Simon Watson to the post of Chief Quality Officer.

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What is NHS Lothian’s Clinical Quality Approach?

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What is NHS Lothian’s Clinical Quality Approach?

This is a new way of approaching quality in NHS Lothian.  With this approach to service improvement we aim to deliver ‘high quality, safe and person-centred care at the most affordable cost’. This acknowledges that every £1million of waste, unnecessary or inappropriate costs in one area of our system, denies us the opportunity to invest that £1million in another area of our system.

This approach will embrace clinical pathways and processes across primary, secondary and social care services, physical and mental health services and engage senior clinicians and managersin our acute hospitals and our four Health and Social Care Partnerships.

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