This is Our Quality Promise
We take quality seriously: keeping people safe, and continually learning is part of our DNA. Our promise sets out how we do it.
Promise 01: Every service we deliver is continuously improving, especially if it means challenging “the way things have always been”
Every service is assessed in our annual Internal Service Review, creating clear improvement plans that reinforce high standards even before external reviews take place. And where we find excellent compliance, we celebrate it so others across our services are inspired to follow suit.
Where we find practices that are no longer helpful, we’re quick to make change happen. For example, when we found most medical practitioners were wearing disposable gloves years after the height of covid, we challenged colleagues to take gloves off, reducing needless waste.
Our national presence also gives us opportunities to share learning, as through our Difference Conference and Striving for Better networks, so innovations in one region can be scaled nationally, and pockets of excellence can become new benchmarks for practice.
Promise 02: We review against a higher national benchmark while responding to the local needs of the population
We triangulate data to draw credible analysis that a single region can’t achieve alone, drawing on our national database of hospitals, clinics and community services. We can observe where the highest performing teams and systems are, ask what’s making them successful, and find ways to replicate the results elsewhere. This means we can benchmark services against our own national standard, and increase the quality of practice to the highest standard.
National standards are only ever applied with local context and partnership. We collaborate with local subject matter experts to audit and review, listening to service users and providers as often as possible, and codesigning ways forward.
Promise 03: We codesign all services
We don’t impose one-size-fits-all solutions. Every service, pathway, and innovation is built with the people who use it and the people who deliver it. At a minimum, every significant change will involve consulting a committee or group that represents service providers or users.
We codesign professional advocacy and other staff-supporting elements, such as our registered nurses’ restorative clinical supervision, so our systems truly belong to the people they serve.
Promise 04: We ensure quality is an enabler, not a barrier
Our quality and compliance teams don’t block change; they work to make it possible in a safe way, ensuring a high standard (evidenced by our CQC rating of Outstanding or Good for 97% of our services), while also ensuring people want to come and partner with the quality and compliance teams when searching for solutions.
Promise 05: Transformation will never drag on for years when it can be done safely in months or weeks
Our teams and systems are designed to be agile, so whether we’re building and rolling out new audit systems, mobilising thousands of staff or creating a digital front door for services, your community can benefit sooner rather than later.
We live by our delivery, with agreements with commissioners just like you across the country, we’ll only be successful if we continue to keep up our record of really delivering transformation, in the time we say, and to deliver the improved outcomes for your community.
Promise 06: We nurture a Just Culture
We’re always listening for potential signals of concerns and we’re committed to open door approachability, where no door in our organisation is shut to anyone with a concern.
We ensure our colleagues feel psychologically safe so they’re able to take initiative. This includes policies that account for human and environment factors and don’t attribute blame to individuals when incidents happen. Following our Just Culture Campaign, all of our people made a pledge to embody a just culture and 80% said they felt they belonged to a team that belonged to them.
Promise 07: We keep our people appropriately qualified, supported and motivated
We’re always nurturing and celebrating people so they can be their best. Initiatives such as our Difference Award ensure we’re able to put the spotlight on teams and individuals, while our reward and recognition systems open up communications between teams so people can receive personalised thank you cards and other forms of recognition.
Our Strive for Better network gives our teams access to experts in the field whenever they need their input.
We’re always horizon scanning for best practices and technology to support our teams better and ensure the standard of care is as high as it can be.
We honour people with great working terms, ensuring roles meet very good conditions, pension terms, and pay living wage and beyond. Over 5,000 of our organisation are now on the NHS agenda for change.
Promise 08: We act responsibly as good citizens, investing in the community
We hire locally and invest in local infrastructure, including in high street clinics that make services1 more discoverable and uplift the local area.
We invest in the voluntary sector. We partner with, subcontract and directly invest in the voluntary sector, helping to reach disadvantaged communities.
Our Difference Fund ringfences money for projects that go beyond business as usual, whether its funding a choir for people with aphasia, refurbishing playgrounds near hubs, or purchasing cycling machines to improve the fitness of patients on a ward. In this latter example, patients ended up “cycling from London to Rome”, the moment was shared UK wide, and the initiative is now being rolled out in our wards in Kent.