Quality Improvement Conference at Evelina London

Kath Evans and Liam Islam with Evelina London Directors at the conference.

Improvement projects and new ideas to provide better care for patients were celebrated and evaluated at Evelina London’s annual Quality Improvement Conference.

Guest speakers at the 2016 conference included Kath Evans, Experience of Care Lead, Infants, Children, Young People and Maternity, NHS England and Liam Islam, NHS Youth Forum member and previous Young Mayor of Lewisham.

Hosted annually, the conference provides an opportunity to focus on the importance of working to improve the experience of children and young people.

Kath Evans opened the event with an inspirational presentation about why children and young people should be actively involved in decisions about their own care and in the design and delivery of services. In her role at NHS England, Kath promotes the importance of listening to patients as the key to improving health services.

Liam Islam is a young person who knows Evelina London well. Liam shared reflections from his own experiences and those of other young people. He encouraged attendees to recognise and utilise patient involvement, participation and engagement.

Kath Evans said: “It’s when we create true partnerships with children, young people and their families/carers that we really create sustained impactful change, there’s an African proverb that resonates for me, ‘ If we want to go fast, go alone, if we want to go further, go together’.  Improvement is part of our day job and the team at Evelina London are clearly bringing this to life in all aspects of care whilst importantly driving improvement collaboratively with the children, young people and families that they serve.’’

Staff from across Evelina London presented on a range of recent improvement projects such as the hospital @home service, Paediatric Outpatient Parenteral Antibiotic Therapy (pOPAT) service and “Movin’ on Up” community groups.

The hospital @home team are a group of experienced children’s nurses providing the expertise of hospital care in the comfort and safety of the home. Being cared for by the team means that children are able to go home from hospital earlier and in some cases avoid coming in to hospital.

The pOPAT team help patients to have their antibiotics at home by training parents or carers how to give the treatment safely. This not only means the entire family can carry on with normal life but also saves the NHS money and freeing up hospital beds for children who really need them.

“Movin’ on Up” is a community group run by occupational therapists to support children with Developmental Coordination Disorder transitioning to secondary school.