How to champion staff-focused quality improvement in your practice

Staff engagement is key for improving outcomes for practice and, for practice managers, developing their leaderships skills to support this is key 

Staff-focused quality improvement (QI) incorporates staff engagement programmes as a key element in improving and enhancing outcomes for practices. Research by the Health Foundation has shown that QI with high degrees of staff involvement have had more impact, and are more sustainable, than those based on other models.

Staff engagement is vital to success in QI and managers need to have the key leadership skills for engaging staff to achieve transformational change in their organisations.

Leadership skills for engaging staff

To engage staff, leaders should possess and use a broad range of skills. These include:

• delegation;
• maintaining a consistent attitude;
• good communication;
• listening and acknowledging;
• motivating and encouraging;
• mentoring and supporting.

Managers should also have a clear vision for engaging staff in QI by setting goals and priorities to ensure staff are accountable for their actions, as well as establishing a culture that supports them. 

Benefits for practices

For practices championing staff-focused QI, enhanced staff engagement can result in the following:  

• Better patient outcomes: researchers have established a link between levels of staff engagement and patient experience. Where staff engagement scores are high, patient satisfaction scores are higher, and mortality rates are lower. 
• High productivity: engaged employees are more effective and productive. They have high levels of trust in management, a greater understanding of their role within the organisation and more motivated to succeed. 
• Opportunities for improvement: staff-focused QI can support organisational change by engaging staff in improvement plans and enabling them to shape the care experience in practices for the better.