Well Newham Challenge project wins WeImprove award for equity

Barts Health NHS Trust held the first ever WeImprove awards this week to celebrate outstanding examples of quality improvement across the Trust’s hospitals.

After receiving over 100 nominations from all five hospitals and corporate services, the judges announced an additional (seventh) award recognising QI’s role in unpicking difficult local processes.

Opening the awards, group director of improvement Chris Gordon said it was: “a day to celebrate our improvement journey so far.”

Group chief executive Shane DeGaris said quality improvement was “tried and tested” and “remains front and centre of how we want to do things around here.”

Former NHS England improvement director Hugh McCaughey said: “outstanding organisations have quality improvement embedded in them” and praised the progress we have made since WeImprove launched in 2019, including the comprehensive suite of training now on offer to our staff.

The WeImprove Equity award was won by a Well Newham Challenge project that looks to improve bowel cancer screening awareness in Newham through a simple, translated flyer that has been co-developed with patients.

The panel praised the “really comprehensive and far-reaching project” that “understood the needs of our local populations.”

The project is finalising the materials before starting to distribute across health and care partners in Newham.