Welcome to Audiology Improvement
What's new from the Audiology Improvement Programme
Shaping the Future: Strengthening the Evidence to Transform Audiology Services
With an increasing demand for audiology services and a drive to improve quality and productivity across the NHS there has never before been a more important time to ensure audiology services are as ‘Lean’ and efficient as possible. This new publication demonstrates how this can be achieved. Click HERE to download the document.
National Event for Healthcare Scientists - 21- 22 March 2011 - Launch of 'Shaping the Future' Audiology Publication
The NHS in partnership with NHS Improvement and NHS Employers hosted a Healthcare Scientist event in London on the 21 & 22 March 2011. The event concentrated on policy and service issues and was opened by The Rt Hon Andrew Lansley CBE MP, Secretary of State for Health. Healthcare Scientists explored how as leaders, they can make a difference in putting together the new system architecture and benefits for patients as set out in the White Paper ‘Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS’ and the accompanying consultation documents. Attendees had the opportunity to attend workshop sessions outlining progress with implementation across a wide range of initiatives including Modernising Scientific Careers, audiology and physiology outcomes, and pathology.
NHS Improvement presented in a workshop titled 'Streamlining Diagnostic Pathways - Lessons Learnt from Audiology’. The session demonstrated how using a whole ‘end to end’ pathway approach, a set of core measures and applying a range of service improvement techniques, including some ‘Lean’ tools can deliver real benefits to patients and how emerging principles can be transferable to other clinical areas.
Case study presentations from Nottingham university Hospitals NHS Trust and Sherwood Forest Hospitals Foundation Trust were used as a platform for discussion about their application to other areas of physiology diagnostics. The audience were asked to use their knowledge to identify areas to shape future work to enable earlier diagnosis and treatment.
Click on the links to view presentations from the day.
Redesigning Pathways of Care
www.dh.gov.uk/cso
Audiology Transition Workshop - 26th January 2011
During the last year, NHS Improvement have been working with audiology pilot sites undertaking work around transition from children’s to adult hearing services and closely with the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) on the ‘Over to You’ project, a joint venture with the Department of Health.
‘Over to You’ is a one-year project which ends this March 2011. The aim of the project is to improve young people’s experiences of audiology services in the London boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets and Hackney.
NDCS played an integral part to the recent Audiology Transition Workshop held on 26 January 2011, held for the audiology pilot sites. For more details about the transition workshop click here»
National Projects Prototype Sites
Following the success of the 18 pilot sites across England, as part of the Department of Health National Audiology Programme 2009/10, six of the sites were identified to work closely with the NHS Improvement Audiology programme, until March 2011. Sites further tested innovative ways to improve the quality of the patient experience, increase productivity and sustain improvements. This work was a great opportunity for sites to influence future services and national strategies. The culmination of the prototyping phase has been written into our latest publication: Shaping the Future: Strengthening the evidence to transform audiology services(NHS Improvement, March 2011).
Aim
The aim of the programme was be to focus on the prototyping, primarily across the adult services, to provide further evidence to support the emerging principles from the pilot sites. The primary goal was to see an improvement in quality of service and efficiency gains of up to 20%.
Project Sites
- Central Manchester University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
- University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust
- Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust
- Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust
- Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- University Hospitals of Birmingham Foundation NHS Trust
Project Team Support
Site project teams received support from National Improvement Leads and access to clinical and peer support from the National Audiology Programme Team. Using proven improvement methods, such as Lean methodology, project teams explored in more detail ‘what really works’ in improving clinical services and whether demonstrable measurements in patient benefits of whole pathway redesign could be achieved. Sites were invited to a series of workshops to assist team members to further develop their project work, share issues and challenges and establish network links with each other. The key learning and outcomes from the prototype projects is available to the wider NHS through this new publication.
For further information contact Fiona Thow at: fiona.thow@improvement.nhs.uk
Transition from Child to Adult Audiology services – Emerging models
Following the success of the pilot sites work with testing new models and pathways for transition of young people from child to Adult Audiology services, the shared learning has been summarised into a report. This report highlights emerging findings from projects and the potential benefits of establishing some generic winning principles of models for Transition services which may help to inform the wider NHS across these and other disease areas. The Transition Summary Report can be viewed here. All sites presented at the National Audiology Conference held in London on the 7th July 2010. Click HERE to see the presentations.
Coming soon: An NHS Improvement publication sharing the generic learning found in transition services in both the Audiology and Cancer Children & Young People (CYP) pilot sites. The publication will appear on this website. For further information contact: fiona.thow@improvement.nhs.uk
Who are NHS Improvement
NHS Improvement is a national improvement programme working with clinical networks and NHS organisations to transform deliver and sustain improvements across the entire pathway of care in cancer, cardiac, diagnostics and stroke services. Formed in April 2008 after a national review, NHS Improvement has brought together over eight years practical service improvement experience from the Cancer Services Collaborative 'Improvement Partnership', Diagnostics Service Improvement Programme, and the NHS Heart Improvement Programme; the longest running Improvement programmes within the NHS.
What is the Audiology Improvement Programme?
In 2008/9 NHS Improvement worked in partnership with the Department of Health National Audiology Programme, supporting a programme of service improvement, working with challenged sites. Using proven improvement methods, such as Lean methodology, this work has resulted in reduced waiting times, streamlined patient pathways and improvements to the quality of experiences for both patients and staff. For a summary report on work on challenged sites click HERE.
Would like to share your work nationally?
In order to capture the high level of enthusiasm for improving Audiology services there will be a number of opportunities for sites not involved in the pilot site programme to contribute to the National Audiology Programme. Many providers are working with their local Audiology communities and commissioners to develop and sustain care pathways. We would like to invite providers to share their achievements and more importantly the lessons learnt. For more information on sharing learning from your project contact Alyson Banks-Davies, email: alyson.banks-davies@improvement.nhs.uk
These examples, publications and improvement stories will appear here on this website and in other publications. If you would like to share a service improvement with audiology colleagues, or have a useful document that you would like to share please contact the NHS Improvement Audiology team.
Audiology Improvement eBulletin
The Audiology Improvement Programme is also supported by a regular eBulletin which aims to keep subscribers up to date with news and information from the Pilot Sites and from the Department of Health. Details of relevant national events and other useful information sources will also be included. For further information on the Audiology Improvement Programme contact: Alyson Banks-Davies on alyson.banks-davies@improvement.nhs.uk
To view the latest audiology ebulletin click here»
To view previous issues of the audiology ebulletin click here»
To subscribe to the audiology e-bulletin click here»
For further information on the Audiology Improvement Programme contact: victoria.towers@improvement.nhs.uk
