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Events over the last 5 years have shone a light on work-life balance – as loss, ill health, home working and high inflation have changed working lives at an incredible pace.

Quality improvement is about making a difference to patients by improving safety, effectiveness, and experience of care.

All nursing staff should have the abilities and support to become involved in addressing health care pressures, utilising their expertise in the profession as leaders, not only in care delivery, but also within the system. However, the work of nursing staff to deliver quality improvement is often limited to opportunities that are dependent on staffing, seniority and availability.  Nurses’ willingness to attend training is often superseded by patient demand making attendance impossible. Other health care colleagues undertake work on research and service improvement alongside their role and as a requirement for their revalidation, this is not the case for nursing staff who don’t get these opportunities.

Consider the benefits of the nursing workforce undertaking quality improvement, conducting local research, reorganising working environments, translating or updating patient materials, trialling novel approaches to care or addressing health inequalities. These skills would not only improve the quality of care we provide but also prepare the nurse to influence and change systems throughout their career.   

This is relevant UK-wide. Scotland's 2030 vision for nurses, states an intention to equip nurses with quality improvement tools and support, but only nurses in non-hands-on roles. NHS Wales offers quality improvement training to health care professionals, but not nurses. In Northern Ireland training is available, but only for Band 7 and above.

What is the role of all nurses to get involved in quality improvement?   

References

Scottish Government (2017) Nursing 2030 Vision: promoting confident, competent and collaborative nursing for Scotland’s future. Available at:

HSCQI (2024) Annual Report 2023-2024. Available at:

HEIW. Available at: