Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust Quality Account 2016-2017

Priority 4: To Lead and Promote a Reflective Culture of Safety and Improvement
Rationale for the selection of this priority:
In order to have the greatest impact, staff must be able to speak up about problems, errors,
conflicts and misunderstandings in an environment where it is the shared goal to identify and
discuss problems with curiosity and respect. The results of our safety culture questionnaire which
we will benchmark with other regional hospitals and through regular board to ward discussion with
staff will help us to achieve the excellence that we aspire to. We will use unwanted or unexpected
outcomes and inefficiencies of practice as the basis for a learning and improvement process.
Our work to date has incorporated a key emphasis on learning from serious incidents and
complaints as well as from case note review and previous analysis of lessons from the healthcare
system. We have very much supported the concept of listening to staff and empowering them to
understand their own role in leading and supporting change and speaking up when they see that
improvements could be made.
The projects that we will undertake are:
Project 1 - Leadership training & development for staff
Project 2 - Board to ward leadership walk rounds
Project 3 – To improve organisational safety culture
Project 4 – Learning From Error for clinical teams
What we will measure:
New appraisal process whereby each member of staff demonstrates they have delivered or
contributed to a local QI project
Staff survey results answering the question “Am I supported to make changes”
Numbers of staff trained in QI
Number of QI projects in place
Number of QI projects submitted for external recognition and awards
Staff survey results
Safety culture questionnaire
Qualitative feedback from Board to ward walk rounds
Leadership and Development Programmes
QI teaching and training
Staff and patient satisfaction survey results
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