There is a growing emphasis on continuous improvement as a route to tackle the challenges of staff and service recovery, deliver better care for patients and better outcomes for communities. NHS England have now set an expectation that leaders in all NHS providers, working in partnership with their Integrated Care Boards, align with the new, single, shared NHS improvement approach, NHS Impact.

Evidence shows that the role of senior leadership is vital to the success and sustainability of improvement and in April 2023, NHS Providers launched a survey which aimed to better understand where respondents considered their trust to be in their improvement journey, in terms of progressing towards an embedded systematic approach, trust-wide and across their collaborations with other providers. The following report summaries the findings from the survey.

The responses to this survey are helping to inform how we build on our Improvement programme, to support providers seeking to mature their improvement approach within their organisations.

It is also contributing to shaping our new support partnership with the Q Community, supported by the Health Foundation and NHS England, to deliver a range of free, peer-learning events and board resources for NHS trust board members and provider collaborative leaders. Launched July 2023, ‘Provider collaboratives: Improving equitably’ is a programme of peer learning for senior leaders on how provider collaboratives can use shared improvement approaches which embed a focus on equity from the outset.