Learning and Improving Across Systems

The partnership between the Q community, and NHS Confederation offers support to boost system-level improvement capabilities across the NHS. A range of resources and opportunities are available to help systems, providers, places and organisations learn and improve together.

Background

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. We 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.

The nine-month programme involved a mix of tools, expert talks and peer discussions centred around personal inquiry questions. The programme supported leaders’ professional development and created new connections across systems. As summary of the insights from the leaders can be found here.

What does the partnership offer?

We are working with health and care systems to boost their capability to learn and improve collaboratively through a programme of support:

peer spaces to learn with and from each other, connecting to local improvement ideas and expertise
practical resources, materials and connections to support implementation in practice
publications, podcasts and events to share learning and support implementation in practice.

Together, through this programme of support we have been working with systems 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
share and scale what we’re learning together.

Our work together is grounded in a learning framework for improving across health and care systems, developed by the Q community.