Discovery about quality management of learning and training for NHS England
NHS England is responsible for the continuous improvement in the quality of education and training provided for healthcare workers. This covers around 240,000 learners across a wide range of healthcare professions and settings.
Project overview
There are currently a number of different approaches and tools used for quality management across NHS England, healthcare and education providers.
The NHS England quality team wanted to better understand the experience of those involved in quality management and their needs, and to explore the possibility of a new national system to report and monitor activity relating to quality concerns in a consistent way across regions.
Project goals
The main goals for the project were to:
- Consolidate and build on previous discovery work to develop a robust body of research evidence
- Understand the problem statement, and potential benefits of a prospective centralised QMS
- Understand the business and stakeholder needs for a QMS
- Break down the multichannel ecosystem of quality management data that a future system will record and manage
- Understand the technical environment a new system will operate in
- Articulate the service as a prioritised backlog of evidence-driven, validated user needs
- Learn from QMS comparators and other systems solving similar problems
- Identify, evaluate and recommend viable technology approaches to pursue
- Make clear, actionable recommendations to progress
Project team
To deliver the work, the Lagom project team consisted of a dedicated Discovery Lead, User Researcher, Service Designer, Digital Strategist and Delivery Manager.
What we did
- Reviewed and analysed previous discovery outputs
- Facilitated a benefits mapping workshop
- Conducted 32 stakeholder and user interviews
- Analysed 102 responses to a user experience survey
- Prioritised 43 user needs
- Conducted a technical options evaluation
- Conducted a landscape analysis with 5 case studies
- Developed 4 proto-personas
- Developed a user journey map
- Developed an opportunity map for a prospective service
Project outcomes
The discovery allowed us to develop a solid foundation of research evidence, which informed a detailed set of recommendations covering user experience, governance, technology options, and a suggested roadmap. The NHS England quality team are now using these recommendations to inform decisions about their next phase of work.
“The discovery project was commissioned to assure us that our needs for a new quality management system were valid. However, the extensive research undertaken by Lagom has provided us with even greater insights than we expected, which will help us to achieve a sustainable solution.”
Richard Higgins, Education Quality Senior Manager, NHS England
