What a Diamond Geezer, the Champion of Quality Champions

I do like new experiences and last week I had another one. Last Friday I found myself in a bullion exchange. That doesn’t sound quite right. I was there to buy something, although it wasn’t krugerrands or silver bars I was buying. It was a fascinating place, hushed and cathedral like. There was an air lock entrance, which took me right back to my time on a forensic unit. Inside there were three rows of people all looking intently at double computer screens, both buying and selling precious metals as well as researching the values of coins, jewellery and so on. Around the walls were glass display cases, several of which contained coins, many of which were commemorative. There was everything from coins with pictures of the Gruffalo, Beatrix Potter’s characters, and kookaburras through to coins celebrating the NHS, and many famous people. I wondered what it would be like to have your face and or your name on a 50p coin. Kind of spooky, I think.

And later on, I wondered what, if anything, people might like to leave behind them as some kind of living legacy. Having a building named after them, perhaps a statue somewhere, or a fountain (all slightly pretentious), or maybe having your picture on a stamp, or your name associated with the discovery of a ‘never before seen’ butterfly. When you stop and think about it, the possibilities are endless but rather daunting at the same time.

Last week, I witnessed another kind of legacy beginning to emerge. I attended the Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh (WWL) NHS Trust Quality Champions Conference. I chair the WWL Quality and Safety Committee and the day is an important one in our calendar. The event was just as fascinating as the bullion exchange, but for different reasons. The ever-enthusiastic Helen Bevan delivered a live video-linked talk on ‘taking power’ and thankfully the technology held out. The sometimes polemic writer, blogger and TV star Roy Lilley was there, giving what at times was a very funny presentation on how the NHS might improve the services it provides. The real stars though were the quality champions themselves. More of which in a moment.

The Quality Champions programme was introduced at WWL in 2012. It is a nationally recognised example of good practice when it comes to embedding quality improvement in an organisation. There are three levels of being a quality champion. Bronze – this is the entry level and is awarded when an individual has undertaken the training to become a quality champion; Silver, is awarded once a measurable and sustained quality improvement has been achieved; and Gold, is awarded when the quality improvement idea has been picked up and used outside of the WWL Trust. Since 2012 nearly 400 staff have become Quality Champions, and there are 66 Silver badge holders and 27 Gold. In 2015 we decided to look at the cost savings that might have been brought about by these projects. Last week it was announced that the programme has saved at least £3.6 million over the last 4 years.

The conference showcased those projects that had achieved Silver and Gold awards in the last year. There were posters and presentations of exemplar quality improvement projects. The presentations were made by the folk that had led on the project and although some were clearly nervous, each one was brilliant and everyone got a very positive response from the audience. They were immensely interesting too. For example, we heard about the development of a critical care patient acuity staffing risk assessment. I didn’t realise the huge range of environmental and condition-dependent variables that had to be considered when agreeing safe and effective staffing levels. There was a presentation on reducing the number of tests that are ordered on patients. It was a challenging project that looked at stopping the growing tendency to order all kinds of tests to arrive at a diagnosis, rather than coming to a diagnosis and then ordering tests to help plan the care required. This initiative made huge savings and of course was better for most patients.

There was a presentation on improving the care given to people who experienced a loss in pregnancy. The room was completely silent, as the audience listened to the experiences of a number of women who had lost their baby or miscarried late in their pregnancy. This poignant and powerful presentation ended with a poem written by a mother and father whose daughter was stillborn. As the room listened to a reading of their poem entitled ‘The Love You Know’, I think there was barely a dry eye in the room.  

Now I know you shouldn’t have favourites, but mine was most definitely the presentation on reducing the number of failed vasectomy sterilisations. It was made by a colleague who must have the longest job title ever - Chief Biomedical Scientist, Andrology Laboratory and Quality Manager. Her presentation was just downright fabulous! A failed vasectomy sterilisation is of course a very serious outcome. Part of the reason for the number of fails, is that many men simply refuse to go for the sperm test, which needs to be done until they get a clear result. I can understand why. I had mine done over 30 years ago and had to take a sperm sample in for the best part of six months before I was clear – even 30 years ago it was an excruciatingly embarrassing weekly encounter with the receptionist at the clinic. This quality initiative is absolutely and very successfully tackling this problem.

Now the man behind the entire Quality Champions programme is our Chief Executive, Andrew Foster, who is retiring at the end of this month. However, he will still be making a continuing contribution to the NHS through his leadership with the NHS People Plan. Andrew has been one of the longest serving NHS Chief Executives (which is a major achievement in its own right). He has in all that time been a passionate advocate of putting quality at the heart of everything that gets done at WWL. Have a look at this video - you can almost taste his passion for quality improvement, and it’s a passion he’s successfully imbued in many others.

Being an extremely modest person, he probably won’t agree with me, but I think an amazing and enduring legacy would be to create a Platinum or Diamond Quality Champions Award in his name, perhaps for a WWL quality initiative that has been picked up on the international stage. In any event, Andrew’s legacy of quality improvement will be long lasting and shared by many – and I wish him a long and happy retirement!