Pragmatic
Healthcare
Improvement
‘Pragmatic and psychologically safe improvement that makes sense to
everyone especially those doing the work’
Welcome to Pragmatic Improvement, we specialise in improving patient flow in hospitals and across health care systems.
We partner with health and care systems to foster a sustainable continuous improvement culture to improve outcomes, patient and staff experience and performance. Our mission is to deliver tangible, sustainable improvements across all aspects of healthcare, ensuring that every patient, staff member, and stakeholder experiences the best possible outcomes.
Our Philosophy
Attempts to introduce continuous and sustainable improvement within healthcare (particularly sustainable patient flow management) are often driven in a manner that doesn’t always resonate with patient-facing teams, resulting in minimal or fragmented buy-in. We believe genuine buy-in for improvement comes when everyone understands the purpose in straightforward language.
We create an environment that promotes psychological safety. The positive link between improving productivity across the NHS and psychological safety is increasingly recognised. The recent Nuffield Trust blog (July 2024) titled "Productivity in the NHS: What’s Getting in the Way?" emphasises that "Ultimately, it’s about psychological safety."
Purpose-Driven Improvement
The purpose of any improvement initiative must make sense to everyone involved. A junior doctor or nurse is less likely to engage with a national target they can’t relate to or something that creates extra work, the value of which they fail to see. However, they are more likely to embrace a purpose that:
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Helps their patients avoid unnecessary waits
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Reduces wasteful processes, making their jobs easier
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Enables patient recovery from their episode of illness
Our improvement approach is designed to be pragmatic and straightforward, following established improvement methodologies. The foundation of our approach is centred around the people doing the work and creating psychological safety. We aim to:
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Empower healthcare teams by involving them in the improvement process
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Simplify complex processes to enhance understanding and implementation
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Ensure that improvement efforts are relevant and beneficial to daily operations
Our mission is to help teams deliver tangible, sustainable improvements across all aspects of healthcare, ensuring that every patient, staff member, and stakeholder experiences the best possible outcomes.
When we have finished working with teams, we leave them with:
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Improved team working
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Improved patient flow (reducing unnecessary waiting times for patients)
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Improvement skills
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The confidence to deliver positive change