'Staff see how sharing their views and experiences can bring change'

An open culture that promotes quality improvement and learning in everyday practice is important, not only to how we deliver care, but for our staff too. Quality improvement needs leaders to engage directly and regularly with staff and empower teams to develop solutions rather than imposing them from the top (Jabbal, 2017).

Tea to Improve Quality is an initiative that fosters an open culture by permitting staff to stop and take time to reflect and share and debate their everyday experiences over a cup of tea. It gives them a space to do this this without the distractions of a busy ward, clinic or their normal working environment, and with permission and empowerment from our leadership to create change.

My role is to lead the sessions, following a set of key principles. They need to be informal, unstructured and without a set agenda so staff can talk openly and honestly about what matters to them. They must be visible, open to staff at all levels and non-judgemental. And they need to foster a community that reinforces that quality improvement is everyone’s responsibility.

"Tea to Improve Quality fosters an open culture by permitting staff to take time to reflect, share and debate their everyday experiences away from workplace distractions"

Topics have been wide ranging, but a few key areas stand out: people’s reflections on current workplace pressures; the future of healthcare and the NHS; use of digital to support quality improvements and commitment to improving service user experience.

We act on what staff say to enable and empower them to make changes. We also feedback on what people are telling us, and what is happening as a result, which is important in being open and transparent about the progress of quality improvement programmes (Jabbal, 2017).

Since we started in January 2023, there’s a lot to be proud of, from larger scale improvement projects to small changes that are making a difference every day. It’s fantastic how in such a short time we are seeing real improvement and positive changes in practice across the trust.

We heard how ward staff find it difficult to find time to eat and the missed therapeutic opportunity of relationship building when eating together with service users. As a result, we are looking at how we support staff to eat on shift and considering piloting therapeutic meals on a ward to establish an evidence base for impact, cost and outcomes. We are also exploring ways to decrease food waste through reducing the amount of food thrown away.

Smaller scale improvement work has included increasing staff confidence to speak up in meetings by using new software to facilitate and gather views and making policies and procedures easier to digest by providing easy-to-read summaries.

These are just a few examples of how Tea to Improve Quality is already making a difference. There is real value for staff in seeing how sharing their views and experiences can change the way we do things as a trust, improve care for service users and make our organisation a great place to work.

We know that giving staff opportunities to participate in workplace improvements can be effective in fostering their wellbeing (The Health Foundation, 2021). Ahead of a more formal evaluation, initial feedback has been extremely positive. Staff have told us the sessions help them feel heard and give them an opportunity to get involved in areas of work they may not have known about. They also value having the chance to talk, share, learn something new and meet like-minded colleagues.

The sessions continue to grow and have the support of teams, services and senior leadership across the organisation. They have become a core part of how we connect across our services and listen, learn and improve to be the best we can be. Tea to Improve Quality is making a difference to our staff and services, and it would be fantastic to see the model used elsewhere.

It's great that so many staff have taken the time to share their experiences through the Tea to Improve Quality sessions and the resulting quality improvements are a huge credit to them.

Carmain Gibson-Holmes is deputy director of nursing, quality and professions, South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust