Trusts that embed trust-wide improvement successfully throughout their organisations embrace accountability for that improvement and have boards that offer space to leaders at all levels to identify, shape and drive that improvement. They have a consistent and coherent approach. Perhaps most critically, they support their staff to engage in and lead improvement efforts by enabling them to both develop improvement skills and capabilities, and by focusing on relationships and culture. Staff in these organisations come to work to deliver and improve services. But how do boards support this evolution to happen?

In our first three virtual webinar sessions as part of our improvement programme, supported by The Health Foundation, we delved into what it really means to have a systematic approach to improvement and what learning we can draw from the experiences of COVID-19. We purposefully explored diverse experiences of organisation-wide improvement, with differing investment levels, and type and rigour of method used.  

Trust leaders shared practical, actionable insights for peers to consider, with a number of common principles emerging that could help sustain the gains made as a result of the pandemic and respond to the scale of the challenges ahead.

This briefing highlights what we've learnt so far.