Improvement

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Changing our world for the better, one improvement at a time

BRILLIANT BASICS is about making sure that the basics are done brilliantly, every day, and that every one of us is empowered to make improvements, and able to do so without having to tackle drawn-out processes.

Nobody knows our work better than us, the people that are doing it, and many of us will have ideas as to how to make those work-related processes better.

Brilliant Basics is about releasing that knowledge and understanding, and applying it for the benefit of our services, and for the ultimate benefit of our children, young people and their families.

We’ve been on quite a journey with Brilliant Basics, and it is now established as how we ‘do’ improvement in Alder Hey. It has succeeded through a commitment to its principles by all who get involved, and by the brilliant team that supports it.

It is gaining an increasing reputation as the benchmark in transforming care and treatment for children and young people. I might add, thoroughly deserved.

Our journey to outstanding

Foundations

• 2002 to 2007 – Excellence Through Learning
• 2007 to 2010 – Rapid Improvement and Service Transformation (RIST)
• 2010 to Present – Programme Management

Building Capability

• 2014 – ‘Requires Improvement’ rating from Care Quality Commission (CQC) following inspection
• 2016 to 2019 – Listening into Action
• 2018 – ‘Good’ rating from Care Quality Commission (CQC) following inspection
• 2019 to 2020 – Inspiring Quality
• 2020 – ‘Good’ rating from Care Quality Commission (CQC) following inspection

Continuous improvement

• 2020 to Present – Patient Safety Meetings, Quality Assurance Rounds, Ward/Department Accreditations, Quality Rounds and Link Execs
• Present – Brilliant Basics

The continuation of that improvement journey is Brilliant Basics; embedding the principles of improvement into everything that we do. We use those same principles to improve the improvement system itself, not standing still; always striving to be even better.

Supporting a culture of improvement

Brilliant Basics Improvement System

There are three elements to our improvement system, each with a key focus that contributes to the whole.

Leading

Developing a style of leadership, at all levels of the organisation, that enables a consistent and systematically applied way to support problem solving and improvement to thrive.

Leader standard work. The Executive team developed and implemented their own set of standards to enable a more specific focus on priority areas, a better grasp on daily safety of the organisation, improved meeting effectiveness and a focus on the voice of children, young people and families.

Developing our leaders to be ‘leaders of improvement’ is now built into our professional development offer and supported by bringing together leaders for tailored coaching, all focussed on continuous improvement.

Delivering

Brilliant Basics is the architecture for all sizes of change; small every day local changes right through to organisational priorities and strategic objectives.

We have built a shared vision through our updated strategy; Vision 2030. A single integrated plan for the organisation is aiding focus on what matters most.

Data driven decision making and assurance is central to our new way of working to ensure we are on the right track to meet the needs of our CYP&F and organisational priorities.

By using the focussed Brilliant Basics approach we have been able to achieve a 20% reduction in the number of administration and/or prescribing errors across Alder Hey as well as a 20% reduction of incidents causing harm.

We looked at our recruitment processes, widely felt to unnecessarily cumbersome, and using Brilliant Basics, we were able to streamline processes and realise a 62% reduction in time to hire.

A multidisciplinary team of services support Brilliant Basics. They include Improvement, Human Resources and Organisational Development, Freedom to Speak up, and Staff Wellbeing. These services wrap around teams to support them to make change happen and to make it stick.

Our principles for delivery are focussed on listening to the voice of children, young people and their families and our staff to identify problems and codesigning change that is tested and measured for impact.

Our children, young people and their families said “it’s just about making it normal to improve”. We work together with our Youth Forum to engage on broad ideas and have a robust co-design process that enables us to design new models of care around the needs of our children and young people.

Learning

All staff are provided with an understanding of Brilliant Basics as soon as they join the organisation, so everyone is clear that this is the way we work.

We have a suite of resources supported by a knowledge matrix, so all our staff know what they need to know and do for improvement as part of their role in the Brilliant Basics system.

This is all delivered in a bespoke, flexible approach utilising our online resources, designed specifically to fit in the everyday working life.

This, in conjunction with improvement coaching, helps to embed new tools, routines and behaviours.

We also have a group of ‘improvement connectors’; frontline colleagues from various staff groups across the organisation with enhanced improvement knowledge and skills.

They bridge between their frontline team and the central Brilliant Basics team growing and spreading improvement capability and capacity directly to the frontline.

“I became a connector because I want to be able to make a difference to children, young people, families and staff at Alder Hey. I can do that by using the skills and knowledge I have and will learn as a connector to support my team and the organisation to identify opportunities for improvement, develop and implement these and then evaluate them.”

Member of staff

Nathan Askew, Chief Nursing Officer said:

“Brilliant Basics as an improvement system gives our staff the knowledge, tools and permission to make change. At its most basic level, it recognises that we all need to develop curiosity of how can we do things better for the benefit of children, young people and their families. Its been fantastic to see so many teams making changes that directly improve care and experience. Our USP is that our improvement approach is embedded in to all aspects of the organisation, including how our board and subcommittees work.”

Better never stops; the improvement system is continuously reviewed and improved, utilising the same consistent methodology, to ensure that its fit for the current needs and to ensure we are maximising the benefits desired.