D6: Making “learning” part of routine “doing” in health care


Wednesday 22 June 2022 | 11:00-12:15


Format: Workshop
Stream: Quality, Cost, Value
Content filters: Features discussion of improvement methodology


Much of health care is delivered under conditions of substantial uncertainty and complexity. Learning fast and well needs to be embedded into how care is delivered day-by-day. Building learning into routine doing puts improvement at the heart of health care operations and also ‘mainstreams’ improvement into health care delivery.


In this interactive session, we will offer a framework for learning and, drawing on examples from the NHS’s pandemic response and playing forward into resetting and rebuilding care post-acute covid, we will explore what it takes to design-in learning both locally and at scale for patient, staff and taxpayer (ie, funder) benefit.


After this session participants will be able to:



  • Think differently about learning—what “learning” is, its relationship to improvement, and what learning contributes to, and have a clear understanding as to why learning is so central to rapidly achieving better results (across cost, quality and experience) in healthcare

  • Understand the central importance of leadership in unleashing learning and be equipped with principles and tips to become “leaders for learning”, whatever our profession/role and wherever we work in a health system

  • Be equipped with ideas, methods and tools around a basic framework for learning fast and well which participants can use to grow a culture of learning in their work, across settings and roles. In particular, we will focus on systematically gathering and acting on patient/family and staff insights on an ongoing basis as the “fuel” for the process


Jenny Shand, UCLPartners; England


Sasha Karakusevic, NHS Horizons/NHS England & Improvement; England


James Mountford, Royal Free London NHS FT; England