Improving Together: Turning good intentions into everyday action

Hello everyone,

If you have noticed a different kind of energy across our sites lately - a little more conversation, a bit more curiosity, maybe even a few more post-it notes on walls - you’re not imagining it. We’re making a deliberate shift in how we think about change and improvement across the Trust. We call it Improving Together.

Every team I work with is full of people quietly tweaking, adjusting and inventing better ways to care for our patients and support each other. But often those great ideas remain local, isolated or dependent on a few individuals. What we’ve lacked until now is a common approach; a shared language and a way of doing things together.

That’s what Improving Together is about: creating a culture where everyone feels part of making things better. Not once in a while or when we are in OPEL 4 but every single day.

So, what is Improving Together?

At its heart, it is a way of working that puts people, our patients and our staff at the centre of everything. It is about noticing problems, understanding them properly, testing small changes and learning as we go. Nothing revolutionary there you might say—but the difference is that we’re making this everyone’s business and we are doing it consistently.

We are not just hoping for improvement to happen; we are building the capability to make it happen in every part of the Trust.

Why it is important – a personal anecdote

My mum was in hospital recently and Dad called me to say he had received a call at 10am from the hospital saying she was being discharged. He asked me if he should go and pick her up and I told him I was sceptical she would be ready and to hold off and wait a while. Next steps:

she was moved to a discharge lounge
no one there was able to write a discharge letter
pharmacy was short staffed and there was a delay in ordering medications
medications were sent to her base ward as no one noted the ward move
amazing staff nurse ran around the hospital to find her medications.

11 hours later Dad was able to take her home.

I certainly see this happening to our patients on a daily basis, and I am sure you will all have similar experiences. This is why we need to ‘improve together’. We have put in place numerous lengthy processes that don’t serve our patients’ needs. We know what needs to be done to get people home; we need to be better at preparing that work in advance and having clear ownership of those processes to get people back to their own homes.

What does it look like in practice?

On nine of our medical wards (six @ PGH and three @ DDH) you’ll now find daily huddles - short, focused team check-ins that help us surface concerns early, track ongoing improvements and celebrate the small wins. It is a quick moment in the day, but one that brings clarity, energy and connection.

You’ll also see visual management boards where teams are openly displaying the things that matter - both the problems they are working on and the progress they are making. This transparency builds trust and reminds us all that improvement is a journey, not a finished product.

Not everything we try will work, and that’s okay. We want to empower people to be brave enough to try and one of three things will happen:

adopt – the idea works, and we think about spreading wider
adapt – the idea isn't quite right, and we iterate a new approach to the problem
abandon – the idea didn’t work and we stop doing it. Importantly, we document why this doesn't work and tell others about our trial.

Better data, smarter decisions

We’re also getting more thoughtful about how we use data. Not just to report upwards, but to learn. That’s a big shift. Data is most powerful when it’s in the hands of the people who can act on it - our teams on the ground. We have a new team of data analysts working closely with us to help us access accurate data that we trust and build better data tools co-designed by clinical teams.

Improving Together encourages us to focus on ‘measures that matter’ to our patients, to our teams and to our services. It might be turnaround times in radiology, discharge delays on the wards, or how long it takes to onboard new colleagues. Whatever the metric, we’re using it to spark conversation, not just populate dashboards to feed management meetings.

This is about people, not just processes

Of course, none of this matters without the people behind it. Improving Together isn’t a project or a programme - it’s a mindset. One that says: “We trust you. We believe in your ideas. And we’ll support you to make them real.”

That’s why we’re investing in training and coaching, giving staff across all roles from clinical teams to corporate services the tools to lead their own improvement work. We’re building a network of improvement coaches - Mid Yorkshire colleagues trained to support local teams as they identify, test and embed change. These aren’t outsiders - they’re part of your teams, walking the same corridors and understanding the same pressures.

And importantly, we’re celebrating progress. Small wins matter. Tiny changes, well tested, can unlock huge improvements. So let’s talk about them. Share them. Spread them.

Where do you come in?

If you’re reading this thinking, “Well, that’s all fine, but I don’t really do improvement,” I’d politely challenge you. If you’ve ever found a quicker way to do a job, suggested a fix for something that didn’t work, or shared a workaround that helped a patient or colleague - you are an improver. What we are doing now is simply making it easier for those ideas to take root and grow. And it applies equally to all teams: clinical and non-clinical, staff at all levels and with whatever level of experience.

So ask the question. Offer the suggestion. Speak up in that huddle. Stick something on the board. This culture only thrives if we all play a part.

Final thoughts

We’re still early in this journey, and it won’t always be smooth. Changing culture never is. But the signs are promising. More teams are engaging. More people are asking “how can we do this better?” rather than “who’s responsible for this?”

And that’s the kind of shift that really matters.

Because in the end, Improving Together isn’t about new processes or posters on the wall. It’s about creating the kind of organisation where we all feel safe to try, supported to learn, and proud of what we’re building.

Not perfect. Not finished. But Improving Together.

Thanks,

Nigel Artis
Divisional Clinical Director and Consultant Cardiologist