Quality Improvement Mapping Event at Cygnet Appletree

On Thursday 3rd March the team at Cygnet Appletree, near Durham, embarked on their Quality Improvement (QI) journey with an incredibly successful ‘Mapping Event’.

The collaborative mapping event, organised by Frances Bergin (Clinical Manager) and Rosie Whittle (Clinical Team Leader), focused on enhancing the multidisciplinary team’s holistic understanding of the service user journey at site, so they can identify gaps in service delivery to target with QI. This was achieved using a variety of QI tools and by involving staff from all disciplines within the event team. A special mention to Derek Glover (Ward Manager), whom attended from Cygnet Hospital Hexham to provide his insights.

After an opening remark by Martin Graham (Hospital Manager), an introduction to QI delivered by Elena Lammila-Escalera (QI Advisor, North) and an insightful presentation on reducing waste by Frances, the team set some expectations and ground rules. One of the ground rules proposed was to ‘value and respect everyone’s contribution’. Discussing ground rules is a brilliant way to start any team session, to ensure effective collaborative working.

Following this, the team utilised a Process Mapping technique to visualise the entire service user pathway, from pre-admission to discharge. This involved a lot of sticky notes! It was great to see how well the team worked together to create a comprehensive timeline, discussing the intricacies of each process and whether there were any discrepancies arising from these conversations. This allowed the team to develop an extensive understanding of the current system using, perspectives from all the disciplines involved – it is vital to understand the current system before attempting to improve it.

Any gaps, barriers and common themes identified were noted throughout this activity and used in the next tool, the Prioritisation Matrix. Using the matrix categories (impact and effort) as a guide, the team sorted through the gaps and barriers identified, prioritising those that were ‘High Impact/Low Effort’ to target for QI. Thanks to the incredible work of the MDT, Cygnet Appletree identified that improving their ‘communication flow’ would be a high impact/low effect change, in addition to instigating meaningful improvement to both service users and staff. As a fun activity to conclude the day, the team played a game of Possibility Thinking. A prize of a chocolate Easter egg, went to the member of staff that thought of the greatest number of solutions to rectify ‘communication flow’ within a strict time limit.

As a result of this event, Cygnet Appletree have since submitted a QI Project Proposal to the QI Team, which will be presented for ratification at the next monthly North QI Forum.

Elena Lammila-Escalera, QI Advisor North, said, “This event marks the beginning of an exciting quality improvement journey for Cygnet Appletree. The QI Team are incredibly impressed with the QI engagement demonstrated by the staff at site and the effort that went into making this day a success – congratulations. It was a delight to attend and I am excited to continue supporting Cygnet Appletree whilst they embark on their QI Journey and become QI Ready! ”

Derek Glover, Ward Manager – Cygnet Hospital Hexham, said, “The QI event at Appletree was both enjoyable and informative. Having had lots of experience of QI working within previous roles (both private and NHS) it was interesting and pleasing to see this being introduced locally within Cygnet. As a strong advocate for continuous improvement it was exciting to be invited to the event at Appletree, see the whole team getting involved and working collaboratively towards identifying current difficulties with the care process that impact on patient care/experiences. I am looking forward to being a part of the next steps of this process at Appletree and, on the back of this event, keen to explore QI opportunities within my own base.”

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