I believe that quality week in November was a great success. I am biased, I know, but hear me out.

In years gone by the organisation has had patient safety week. I had the pleasure to be involved in the last PSW in 2016. We went out as a team and spoke to staff and patients about patient safety. It was hit or miss. Patients didn’t always ‘get’ what we were talking about and staff, well they knew or pretended to at least.

PSW felt narrow in scope and bit like preaching to the choir. But what about quality? Quality means different things to different people, it’s safety, person centred, access and lots of other things. Perhaps a week based on quality would resonate more. It also helped that the fabulous teams at Hairmyres, Monklands and Wishaw had each held their own awareness raising weeks in the time since the last PSW. The scene was set.

So what was different, why was it a success for me? We engaged the whole quality directorate – not just the patient safety team. Upwards of 20 staff supported a range of activities during the week. We had engagement from our colleagues in Health and Social Care Partnerships and ran a number of events just for community staff. The hospitals didn’t need us sticking our nose in and each coordinated a week of activities to support their local quality priorities. We ran Quality Labs for each of their 5 operational units and spent time engaging with the public through the public reference forum and at our Health centres.

The crown jewel was our QI celebration event on Thursday the 16th. WE celebrated the fantastic QI work of the staff of Lanarkshire with over 50 posters on display. We were joined by Tommy Whitelaw who challenged us all to turn our intentions into meaningful actions. Staff also pledged to promote Joy in work during 2018.

All of this activity was impressive enough, but for me the real success – I got to connect with people I had never met and who knew little of quality improvement. Weeks like this are crucial in helping us to set the conditions for QI in our organisation. We have re-energised those already involved, got some great ideas for future and most importantly for me, got the curiosity of some staff who otherwise would never get involved in the QI malarkey.

I want to say a huge thanks to Lesley Anne Smith for supporting me and the team to coordinate and pull this week together. Thanks also go out to Iain Wallace, Kate Bell, Marjorie McGinty, Laura Drummond, Amanda Minns, Rick Edwards and Margaret Angus.  The biggest thanks goes to all the staff, patients and public who engaged with us that week. See you next year, if not before.