ABCi Pit Stop Tour

David Thomas
Assistant Director, ABCi

Next week, on Thursday the 16^th of January, our first ABCi “Pit Stop” will take place in the canteen at the Royal Gwent Hospital (more info here).  I’m excited about it, and here’s why…

If you’re reading this, it’s a reasonable bet you’ll already have at least some awareness of what ABCi is.  Chances are you will have come across us through some form of quality improvement (QI) training, or by being involved in some improvement work we’ve supported, or maybe both.  A lot of what we do – one of the three central pillars of our work – is focussed on building capability in ABUHB.  Capability consist in knowledge, skills and an environment supportive of teams improving services for their patients.  Training and supporting improvement work would typically be thought of as ways of building this.  But, as Joy Furnival points out in this excellent blog, the evidence around building capability is, at best, moot.  Indeed, there is quite a lot of evidence that QI training can quickly fall prey to e.g. skill fade, HR churn etc.  In ABCi we’ve been thinking and talking about this a lot recently, and we’re very focussed on developing an approach to building capability that gives us the best chance of making the best use of our limited resources – ensuring that as much as possible of what we do meaningfully bolsters improvement capability in ABUHB, and that it sticks.  Formal, classroom training is absolutely a part of this, but it increasingly seems apparent that critical, too, are some of the softer, cultural and relational aspects of capability that Furnival homes in on when she describes “… local daily coaching and improvement dialogue in context and practice, within teams, and recognis(ing) the time needed to develop improvement capability and team relationships within a supportive, compassionate, learning culture will be much more than a few days or weeks.” 

As Furnival points out, there’s no magic bullet here, but we believe that Pit Stops are one way (we are also developing others, e.g. QI Clinics) that we can improve our reach and accessibility to help to nurture a more sustainable QI culture.  Pit Stops will be dedicated, pre-planned contact time for you to access ABCi at a site near you and obtain help and advice.  This might just be discussing an idea or an innovation (doesn’t matter if it’s big or small – we are keen to hear them all), or – yes – learning about training courses we offer.  It is also your opportunity to access coaching support for your improvement work after undertaking ABCi Quality Improvement training: building your confidence in the use of run charts, data and modelling skills; making and maintaining connections, whether we’re currently involved in supporting your team or not.  Bookable “clinic” slots are available in the afternoon for more in-depth support around a particular problem or project.

We will be running Pit Stops all year on a fortnightly basis, alternating between St Cadoc’s and operational sites across Gwent.  Approaching this with a QI mindset, we’ll be monitoring and measuring our progress over time.  We welcome feedback, and will aim to make adjustments and improvement as we learn.  We really hope you’ll come along and meet us.

David