Trusts and ICBs asked to give ‘honest’ assessment of their ‘improvement culture’

Trust leaders have been asked to “self-assess” the quality of their “improvement culture” as part of an initiative launched by NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard in the spring to lead the service's new improvement drive.

The call came from NHS Impact, led by former Modernisation Agency chief David Fillingham, who along with NHS Impact’s deputy chair – University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire Foundation Trust CEO Andy Hardy – has written to service leaders, setting out the first stage in the improvement drive.

They have asked the boards and CEOs of trusts and integerated care boards to “engage directly” with a new self-assessment tool and maturity matrix created by NHS Impact. This is designed to gauge their progress on adopting the five practices that NHS IMPACT claim “form the DNA of an improvement culture”.

Those five practices are:

• A shared purpose and vision which are widely spread and guide all improvement effort.
• Investment in people and in building an improvement focused culture.
• Leaders at every level who understand improvement and practise it in their daily work.
• The consistent use of an appropriate suite of improvement methods.
• The embedding of improvement into management processes so that it becomes the way in which we lead and run our organisations and systems.

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Source: HSJ, 29 September 2023

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