Aspiring Improvers: building improvement skills

The Aspiring Improvers programme aims to create a network for people starting out in improvement, providing them with the skills and support to build their confidence and capability to get involved with, and eventually lead improvement.

We believe that improvement should be part of everyone’s job in health and social care, but often the development opportunities in this field, particularly in terms of peer support and networks, are restricted to particular roles or levels of seniority.

The Aspiring Improvers programme aims to develop and inspire people working in health and social care who are in support roles or early in their career and who can demonstrate an enthusiasm for and commitment to improvement.

The programme

The programme provides training and development to help participants build their skills, knowledge and understanding of improvement. In addition, it will connect people at the start of their improvement journey and provide opportunity for open dialogue in a safe environment away from the usual workplace, offering time and space to reflect and plan. Through this new network, participants support each other, their own organisations and others in delivering better results for patients and populations. Importantly, they also better equip themselves and their organisations to progressively improve over time.

The 12 month programme includes:

• Training in Quality Improvement skills
• Workshops on improvement topics, providing the opportunity to reflect and explore ideas, challenges and priorities
• The opportunity to turn an improvement idea into a reality by designing and running an improvement project
• The opportunity to network and build a community of people to turn to for inspiration, support and expertise that go beyond current local and professional networks and endure over time, beyond the formal programme
• The opportunity to gain access to wider communities of improvers, such as the UCLPartners Improvement Fellows
• Access to learning resources

This initiative helps to make those involved become visible and effective and further support development and improvement capability.

Organisations benefit not only from participant’s development, but also from better access to great ideas, opportunities and talent from across the system, which can then be harnessed and deployed for wider benefit.

The participants

The most recent cohort of Aspiring Improvers completed the programme on 14 November 2019.

Recruitment to future cohorts of our Aspiring Improvers Programme is on hold while we review our strategy.

For information about the other quality improvement opportunities we offer please email QI@uclpartners.com.