Improving Improvement

This toolkit was developed as a means to translate the description of a systems approach from the Engineering Better Care report into an actionable programme of improvement. In its physical form the toolkit comprises a box containing this document, cards, posters, worksheets and workshop materials that enhance the facilitation of the improvement programme.

Presentations are also available to provide an introduction to:

1. The Engineering Better Care¹ report - introducing the people, systems, design and risk perspectives and their respective improvement questions.
2. This toolkit - introducing the ‘hexagon’ model of improvement, the components of this toolkit, and comparisons with alternative approaches.
3. The worksheets, posters and cards — showing how these can be used to design and deliver specific programmes of improvement.

Interactive training courses that combine all of the above, with illustrative case examples, have been run by the authors on multiple occasions. .

The Resources section contains Cards, Posters, Worksheets, Guides and workshop materials to assist in the facilitation of improvement programmes.

These provide a starting point to embellish existing improvement approaches or may provide a standalone systems-based framework for improvement, and include:

1. Ten sets of Cards that describe service users, service personas, service stakeholders, service improvers, case studies, improvement questions, improvement frameworks, improvement activities, improvement tools and improvement definitions.
2. A set of Posters to illustrate the concepts and tools for improvement, including the planning of the improvement process and the use of the worksheets.
3. A set of blank Worksheets, or working documents, to support the improvement process that are based on the posters and other supporting materials.
4. A set of Guides to support the delivery of each Improvement Stage within the improvement process, highlighting the questions and tools relevant to each stage.