Learning and improving across systems

The practice of improvement is increasingly recognised as a key part of the solution to the unprecedented challenges faced by today’s health and care services. 

This was demonstrated by the launch of NHS IMPACT [ref]NHS England. NHS IMPACT (Improving Patient Care Together). [/​ref], NHS England’s single shared improvement approach, in April 2023. 

The need to build improvement skills across health and care systems, such as Integrated Care Boards, and to scale improvement has never been greater. But system-level improvement is complex, involving several organisations, many people, a variety of patient pathways and a mix of challenges. 

In June 2023, the Q community, NHS Confederation and the Health Foundation launched a partnership to support health and care systems to boost their improvement capabilities.

In 2024 we hosted a peer learning programme for system leaders. Our nine-month programme brought together leaders across 38 integrated care systems, NHS trusts and health boards, local authorities and voluntary organisations across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We used a mix of tools, expert talks and peer discussions centred around personal inquiry questions to support leaders’ professional development and create new connections across systems. 

The partnership aims to:

• develop learning and improvement approaches needed to meet system goals
• galvanise local improvement ideas and expertise, helping leaders connect from the board to the ​‘frontline’ of delivering change
• pool evidence and experience to understand and make progress on priority topics together
• share and scale what we’re learning across systems.

Through the partnership, we want to boost system-level capability to learn and improve collaboratively. An expanding programme of support is available to people leading improvement work at a system level. 

We are offering:

• Practical resources and connections to support implementation in practice, such as our principles for supporting peer learning across systems.
• System Improvement Support is a tailored service for health and care leaders and their teams to help them transform services and achieve sustainable improvement.
• A podcast, Leading Improvement in Health and Care, co-hosted by Penny Pereira and Matthew Taylor.

Our work together is grounded in a learning framework. It supports leaders to recognise, navigate and holistically plan improvement to improve health and care across systems. This tool also helps work through what NHS IMPACT means in practice.