Project summary

The East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative (EMPSC), which is hosted by the EMAHSN, has been awarded £20,000 by the Health Foundation to develop quality improvement resources, working with care homes.

The funding will help to build on the React To series of training resources, specifically designed for care home staff and other healthcare professionals. These resources cover topics such as pressure ulcers, infections, hydration, falls, dementia and footcare.

During the pandemic, the Patient Safety Collaborative has worked closely with care homes and established a good learning network. The project builds on this momentum to further empower care home teams by working with them to co-produce more resources for the series, specifically for a care home environment.

The Health Foundation has awarded funding to nine projects through the Supporting local learning funding programme, which aims to strengthen the design of structured learning in the health and care sector.

The challenge

Care home staff have expressed frustration that training is often NHS-focused. Scenarios and examples specific to acute healthcare provision do not resonate with their experience or opportunities to apply quality improvement (QI). Resources relating to QI methodology are reported as being difficult to understand.

Care homes differ from hospitals in terms of structure, function, client, and staff groups. For this reason, the principles of quality improvement, which are well established in hospitals, need adapting to work within care home settings.

The sector is also underrepresented within our regional Q membership, and the benefits of reciprocal learning and co-production between health and social care workforces are not fully realised. By co-producing a React To QI suite of resources with care home staff, we will build the conditions for them to embrace and apply a quality improvement approach.

The solution

This project will develop QI resources designed and co-produced with care home teams, using the well-known React To format.

The aim is to empower care home teams to improve care quality through co-production of accessible tools, designed for use in this setting. By making QI methodology more accessible to care home teams, the project will build skills and knowledge required locally for collaborative, learning by equipping care home teams to engage within the Q community.

The EMPSC has already worked with care homes promoting a QI approach, coaching, and supporting staff in QI applications for five years. Our experience demonstrates that co-producing and tailoring resources to the needs of the sector enables staff to better connect with quality improvement.

Impacts and outcomes

The expected project outcomes include:

• A set of tailored QI training resources, tools and templates, co-designed by care home staff for use in the care home setting to drive improvements in care for residents and staff.
• React To resources developed and tested.
• Promotion of and increased engagement with the Q community.
• Increased membership and diversity of membership of the Q community across health and social care settings. Evidenced through membership analysis.
• An increase in care home projects that use the IHI Model for Improvement and are subsequently able to demonstrate measurable improvements. Evidenced through case study examples.
• Increased engagement across the patient safety care home network activities, for example increased attendance at our ‘Connecting Together’ care home safety network webinar series, and increased care home involvement in local supported learning activities.
• Care home staff feeling more confident to participate in QI activity, measured through a pre/post survey to care home staff who have been involved in QI work.

Contact

For further information on this project, contact Natalie Riley at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.