THE TIPS QI GUIDE
Welcome!
As clinicians we always strive to deliver the best care possible to our patients. Unfortunately, this is often made challenging by the busy and complex nature of the modern NHS within which we work. Going about improving an aspect of care can seem daunting, especially for ‘junior’ members of staff who perhaps feel they don’t have the experience or authority to actually make changes to clinical practice. Yet it is precisely us, working directly with patients daily, who are best placed to identify problems and subsequently generate ideas to improve care. All that is needed is to feel empowered and be given the right tools…
Welcome to the TIPS QI Guide. It is aimed at Foundation and Core Trainee level doctors in the NHS, but we hope other healthcare professionals will find it useful, especially if you have not done any quality improvement work in the past. Step by step we will walk you through how to go about improving an aspect of care in your clinical area of work. The methods we will use are internationally proven and effective, as long are they are applied correctly and consistently. An ideal situation is to have a trained improvement advisor or coach working alongside your team, but this is rare. Our goal is for this guide to be the next best thing.
The guide is laid out in a logical fashion, and if you are new to QI we suggest you read each step in order. You will be able to work through each step using the navigation links at the bottom of each page.
There’s a good chance you will discover doing QI work to be incredibly fun. Our usual clinical work is fast-paced and is most settings patient turnover is rapid. Many people find there is something very satisfying in applying weeks or months to a project, and having results at the end they can be proud of. In fact one project often leads to another, upon the realisation we actually can make a large difference to patient care and feeling empowered to do so. We hope that person will be you.