Learning from Excellence works wins Patient Safety award

Appreciating People is thrilled to have been part of the team that won a Patient Safety Award earlier this month, for the training work we’ve done alongside Emma and Adrian Plunkett and the team at the Patient Safety Collaborative of the West Midlands Academic Health Science Network.

The awards are in their 9th year, and recognise outstanding practice within the NHS and independent healthcare organisations.

West Midlands Academic Health Science Network’s winning entry delivered a ‘two stage’ education and training process to promote Learning from Excellence, a method of learning from what goes right in healthcare. Using Appreciative Inquiry as its anchoring philosophy, LfE uses positive incident reporting, supported by a structured learning process based around AI.

AP co-director Suzanne Quinney, who led the AI training, said: ‘It has been really inspiring to be part of such a practical AI project, where the ethos of AI is naturally embedded. Emma and Adrian have done an amazing job bringing this project into the NHS in a way which seems to resonate with so many staff across so many different organisations – they have enthused people from far and wide – way broader than the West Midlands.


‘The Patient Safety Collaborative team at WMAHSN have been genuine facilitators who saw an idea which met the needs and good interests of NHS staff and put their resources behind supporting it fully.’
The award was presented by Virtual College director Judith Clarkson, who said: ‘There were some impressive entries demonstrating a huge commitment to education and training throughout the UK.

‘The judges felt that this was a truly innovative approach that has the ability to transform the way we improve patient safety. This should be considered for national rollout both for patient safety and staff morale.’

You can read more about our Learning from Excellence work in this case study…
You can also read the HSJ’s article here.