The recent cohort of NHS Ayrshire & Arran’s Improvement Foundation Skills (AAIFS) was joined by the National Clinical Director of Healthcare Quality and Strategy, Professor Jason Leitch, and Deputy National Clinical Director, Dr John Harden, to celebrate graduation day this week.
Ayrshire and Arran Improvement Foundation Skills (AAIFS) is a local quality improvement (QI) foundation skills course using NHS Education for Scotland accredited methods to deliver quality improvement training to a multidisciplinary group of staff.
Since originally starting in 2020, with a cohort of 10 candidates and the aim of supporting local improvement projects, AAIFS has evolved to three cohorts throughout each year with approximately 180 staff completing the programme.
NHS Ayrshire & Arran’s QI Advisor and part of the faculty supporting AAIFS, Kirsty Telfer said,
“On behalf of the Quality Improvement team at Ayrshire and Arran, I want to thank Professor Leitch and Dr Harden for coming along to our Cohort 8 graduation day.
“The participants shared projects aligning with NHS Ayrshire & Arran’s four pillars – quality, service, people and finance. Some examples included piloting a system for direct referral into Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy services, upskilling pharmacy technicians to complete review or oral anticoagulation medication and reducing theatre turnaround time to ensure theatre list efficiency.
“The day provided the perfect setting to demonstrate, first hand, the level of work that each candidate has put into their area of quality improvement.”