Leeds Improvement Method
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has been selected as one of the five Trusts to take part in the NHS Improvement Partnership working with NHS Improvement and the world-renowned Virginia Mason Institute in Seattle.
We are one of only five trusts in the UK to work with the prestigious Virginia Mason Institute on a programme we know as the Leeds Improvement Method. The partnership was announced in July 2015 against a backdrop of a system refocusing on quality improvement within tighter financial constraints in healthcare.
This is a five year partnership to support accelerated transformation in quality.
In summary, the Leeds Improvement Method:
- Is Patient-focused
- Is the application of observation and data analysis tools, to describe how patients experience our services
- Supports staff to systematically remove waste
- Promotes zero defects and zero harm for patients
- Uses a disciplined timeframe
- Encourages participation and respect for each other as equals
Urology is one of the first areas using the Leeds Improvement Method to improve our services. Specifically, the Transurethral Resection of the Prostate (TURP) patient pathway has been improved through a succession of rapid process improvement workshops. These are weeklong workshops where a group of seven or eight staff involved in a different part of the pathway, work to improve the way the service works, with the aim of making it more effective and to improve the patient experience.
Areas that have been looked at in the rapid process improvement workshops so far are:
- Clinical Checkpoints (reducing length of stay for TURP patients)
- Effective Preparation for TURP patients
- Preparing the Electronic Discharge Advice Note
- Trial without catheter
