This means deciding what information you will gather, how you will listen to people's experience and how you will use what you learn to improve your services.
When gathering feedback from people who may have experience trauma, you should take a safe, respectful and sensitive approach. People should be able to choose whether and how they contribute, understand how their information will be used and feel confident that sharing their views will not affect the support they receive.
You should also avoid asking people to repeat difficult or personal experiences unnecessarily. Wherever possible, let people contribute in a way that feels comfortable and appropriate for them.
Identify what is working and what needs to improve
Take time to consider what:
- is working well and should continue
- is not working as well as it should
- people with lived and living experience have told you
- other information or evidence is already available
- you need to learn more about
- action you should take next
You may may decide that you need to:
- continue checking that an effective approach is working well, as part of quality assurance
- make changes to an approach that is not working well, as part of quality improvement
Your organisation should follow its agreed process for approving any project or improvement activity. Within the service, projects and quality improvement activities should be approved at the Operational Management Meeting using SBarr. This helps to make sure decisions are structured, transparent and connected to the wider aims of the service.
Plan your improvement activity
When something needs to improve, you should agree what you are trying to change and what difference you hope the change will make.
Be clear about:
- what you want to improve
- why the improvement matters
- who should be involved
- what activities you will carry out
- how people with lived experience will contribute
- what information you will collect
- how you will know whether the change has helped
- how you will share what you have learned
You should involve people with lived and living experience as early as possible. Their contribution should help shape the improvement, rather than being gathered only after decisions have already been made.
Recording activities
You can record your planned activities using a Plan, Do, Study, Act cycle, often called a PDSA cycle:
- Plan: agree what you want to improve, what you will do and how you will know whether it has made a difference
- Do: Try out the planned activity or change
- Study: Review the information you have gathered and listen to what people have experienced
- Act: Decide what should happen next. You may adopt the change, adapt it or try a different approach
Improvement is an ongoing process. You may need to repeat this cycle as you learn more about what works well for people.
Use your strategic work plan to record activities, responsibilities, timescales, progress and learning.
[Insert work plan template]
Decide how you will measure improvement
Before starting an improvement activity, decide what evidence will help you understand whether it is making a positive difference.
Information may come from sources such Power Bi, Mosaic, service records, audits, staff observations and feedback from people who use services.
You should not rely on one source of information alone. Numbers can show patterns and changes, but people's experience can help you understand why those changes are happening and what they mean in practice.
Choose measures that are:
- relevant to the improvement you are trying to make
- meaningful to the people who use the service
- proportionate and realistic to collect
- sensitive to people's circumstances and experiences
- suitable for tracking change over time
You should also consider whether the information you collect reflects the experiences of different groups of people. An overall improvement may hide the fact that some people are not experiencing the same benefits.
Use quantitative and qualitative information
You should use a combination of quantitative and qualitative information.
Quantitative information
Quantitative information uses numbers to show what is happening.
For example, over the last 3 months, the percentage of people offered an induction meeting within three days of sentencing increased from 65% to 85%.
This information can help you identify patterns, compare results and track changes over time.
Qualitative information
Qualitative information helps you understand people's experiences, views and feelings.
This may include:
- conversations
- interviews
- focus groups
- surveys
- written feedback
- complaints and compliments
- observations
- personal accounts or stories
For example, people told us they felt better informed, more involved in decisions and clearer about what support was available to them.
Qualitative information should not be treated as less important because it cannot always be reduced to a number. What people say can provide important insight into whether they felt safe, respected, listened to and supported.
When presenting qualitative feedback, take care to protect people's privacy. Do not include details that could identify someone unless they have given clear and informed permission.
Gather feedback safely and respectfully
When inviting people to share their lived and living experience, you should explain:
- why you are asking for their views
- whether taking part is voluntary
- how their information will be recorded
- who will see it
- how it will be used
- how their privacy will be protected
- what support is available if the conversation brings up difficult feelings
- how they can stop or withdraw from the activity
Give people different ways to contribute wherever possible. Some people may prefer a conversation, while others may feel more comfortable responding anonymously or in writing.
Review what the evidence is telling you
Once you have started your improvement activities, review your measures regularly.
Consider:
- whether the planned activities have taken place
- whether the information shows that something has changed
- what people with lived and living experience are telling you
- whether the change has improved people's experiences
- whether there have been any unintended consequences
- whether the change is helping everyone equally
- what you still need to understand
- whether you need to adapt your approach
Move from quality improvement to quality assurance
Once the evidence shows that a change is helping, you should put arrangements in place to make sure the improvement continues. This is part of quality assurance.
Quality assurance should help you understand whether agreed standards are being maintained across areas such as:
- statutory responsibilities
- service delivery
- case recording
- timescales
- people's experiences
- feedback, complaints and compliments
- the outcome that matter to people
Measures may include:
- case file audits
- the percentage of people met within one or 3 days of a sentence being passed
- whether people felt listened to and involved
- whether people believe the service helped them work towards the outcomes that mattered to them
- whether support was provided safely, respectfully and consistently