Hi all,
My name is James, and I am an academic F2 at East Kent University Hospitals Foundation NHS Trust, working in the medical education department.
I've taken on a project to improve the inclusion of environmental sustainability in the trust's quality improvement projects.
Baseline audit of the 211 QIPs completed in the last 18 months identified that just 6 projects (2%) included explicit inclusion of environmental sustainability. And of these 6 projects, no project quantified the carbon savings.
The trust has just published its Green Plan, which has a clear aim: To include environmental sustainability as a domain of quality improvement.
I've been working with the QIP team, who are motivated and engaged to support the inclusion of environmental sustainability into the QIP process, and we are exploring opportunities to achieve this.
I am looking for advice from other trusts, quality improvement teams, or clinicians who have been involved in changing governance processes to improve the inclusion of environmental sustainability within QIP.
We are currently considering adding an 'environmental sustainability' aspect to the QIP registration form, providing a checklist to prompt QIP mentors to consider how environmental sustainability might be included within the projects they support. This is going to be supplemented by a training session for the QIP mentors, as a survey has identified a clear training need.
Specific advice sought:
- How do you motivate inclusion of environmental sustainability in QIP within the wider clinical workforce?
- How do the QIP teams / Improvement Teams / Audit teams support or motivate the inclusion of environmental sustainability with QIP?
- How are project leads supported within your trust to include environmental sustainability, particularly technical aspects such as carbon footprinting or measuring their impact?
- How have trusts/QIP teams quantified the inclusion/completion of SusQI or the environmental impacts of their QIPs?
I am grateful for any advice from those who have changed or influenced governance processes at their trusts.
I'll check back here, but also please feel free to contact me at james.lee58@nhs.net
Hi James! We are in exactly the same boat in Fife. We (the Sustainability team from the board, based in estates) are trying to support more SusQI projects for trainee GP's. It looks like the first steps for us will be attending in person meetings with R&D teams, trainee GP sessions, to raise awareness of sus/env QI projects then we will go from there, funding is also something we need to iron out.
How do most staff currently get their QI training? Uni? LearnPro? QI sessions in post-grad teaching? QI team? ...
Wherever the QI training occurs, the resources/trainers should be including environmental aspects.
Are there events celebrating QI when there can be an emphasis on including it in the planning and outcomes?
Something I have tried to do locally, but too many competing pressures just now so not got far!
Hi James,
your work sounds very interesting! I am transformation director at CSH - overseeing our SusQI programmes. I think you are already in touch with Debs our green team delivery lead, however you may find these video presentations from other Trusts on how they embedded sustainability into QI locally of value:
1) SusQI Showcase: Integrating SusQI at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwByqLuoQuQ
2) SusQi Showcase 2024 - Benefit & Challenges of Embedding SusQI into QSIR at South Warwickshire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfzLi558cxU&embeds_referring_euri=https…
You may also like to take a look at the SusQI Academy and open access resources on www.susqi.org.
We would really love to hear the outcome and learning from your work when ready.
Best wishes
Rachel
Hey everyone - pleased to update you on some progress:
I have completed:
1) a baseline audit of all QI projects completed at the trust in the last 18 months. Just 2% inclusion of environmental sustainability, with a further 17% with a clear missed opportunity (quite a subjective measure, but essentially these projects were just the quantification of the environmental impact - i.e., reducing scans, clinical projects without quantifying the environmental impacT).
2) 1-hour workshop with the Trust Improvements Team (measuring baseline confidence and post-intervention confidence across carbon footprinting, environmental, social and financial sustainability). Confidence used as a proxy measure as timeline prohibits measuring objective change, such as QIs completed in the next 18 months with explicit SUSQI.
3) Development of a project registration triage tool - all projects are registered with the QI team - this tool is designed to support improvement mentors in identifying opportunities for the inclusion of environmental sustainability. It is an interactive PDF. Feedback from the team on this tool was that it would be much more useful to reframe it for the Project leads themselves - i.e., everyone registering the project gets sent the triage tool and is supported to identify and quantify any potential environmental benefits.
I've attached the first draft write-up and the PDF tool - keen to hear any feedback.
Thanks
James
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