At Ashford and St Peter’s NHS Foundation Trust (ASPH) we are aiming to have a culture of ‘curiosity and creativity’ that is fair, open and supportive.

One of the ways we will contribute to this culture for the organisation will be to have an approach to quality improvement (QI) that develops capacity and capability for individuals and teams to make improvements for themselves; and an approach that encourages experimentation and innovation.

‘Be the Change’ is about supporting individuals and teams to be empowered, creative, innovative and always looking for ways to improve their services and the care we provide.

Our mission is to foster and support organic improvement activities - by going where the energy is, giving people a basic understanding of improvement skills, and then supporting people in the next stages of the journey.

Finally, we are aiming to develop an approach that is unique to ASPH and builds on what we do well.  ASPH is a caring and compassionate organisation and we want to ensure that our approach to QI reflects these strengths and harnesses these in delivering better care for patients.

Our aims:

• To continually improve the care given to our patients

• To contribute to an organisational culture of ‘curiosity and creativity’

• To strengthen teams and build collective leadership for improvement

Our objectives:

• To build a broad knowledge of an improvement methodology that is simple and repeatable

• To ensure data, measurement, problem-solving and PDSA skills are taught at all levels

• To develop soft-skills and people-focused improvement skills, through coaching and mentoring of teams

“We are embracing Quality Improvement, not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it will help us achieve the culture of curiosity and creativity where we all feel empowered and confident in looking for improvements in our processes and procedures for the benefit of our patients.”

SUZANNE RANKIN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE 2015