25.04.17
‘Improvement lab’ launched to tackle complex health challenges
A new ‘Improvement Lab’ has been launched this week by the Health Foundation alongside NHS Improvement in order to address complex challenges facing the health care sector.
Called the ‘Q Improvement Lab’, the organisations aim to bring together a community of people from across the health sector, including clinicians, patients, policy experts and frontline workers to develop new ways of solving problems facing patients and healthcare professionals.
The Lab aims to test solutions that will yield long-term benefits to patients and also find places in the NHS where services can be run more efficiently or effectively.
Ideas will be tested in a clinical environment with people working in health and care to ensure that results can be fed back to researchers as quickly as possible.
Each idea will be tested over a nine to 12-month period. The lab’s first challenge will explore what it would take for peer support to be available to anybody who wanted it to help them manage their long-term health and wellbeing needs.
Depending on what is learnt at this first pilot test lab, which is located in King’s Cross, the vision of the organisations is to expand and establish a number of smaller labs in towns and cities across the UK.
Tracey Webb, head of Q Labs, said the lab represented a very exciting time for the Q community and the future of healthcare, innovation and improvement in the UK.
“The Q Improvement Lab will address complex challenges in health and care,” she stated. “While there are labs in other sectors and countries at the leading edge of improvement research and innovation, there is no other lab we know of that is connected to a community of hundreds of people working at the front line and every level of improving health and health care.
“By creating this space, we will have the time to test new ideas and generate solutions that will help those working in health care and make a difference to patients and users in the future.”
Top Image: Q Lab
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