Our strategy

The future of the Academy

Underpinned by four priority streams and centred on learning, our integrated strategy for 2018-21 aims to help us achieve our vision ‘to lead and facilitate improvement through innovation, learning and evidence based care across our communities’.

To support the delivery of our key priorities, we will dedicate ourselves to cultivating a culture of learning, where we will support colleagues across Solent NHS Trust to learn from things that happen. Whether it is from feedback, from events or from ideas, we will use and share this learning to make things better for people; for staff, for patients, for families, for colleagues.

Our vision and our priorities have been developed in partnership with our patient and public involvement group ‘Side-by-Side’, colleagues from around the Trust, key partners and our core team, with the five Solent NHS Trust values in mind.

Priority stream one: Research and Innovation

Priority	How we are going to do it
Increase the number of people who participate in research, and the scope of opportunities to be involved across the Trust and our communities	Recruit a minimum of 5000 participants over the next three years, and deliver 150 portfolio studies across our range of specialities
Ensure research is easily accessible, particularly for those whose voice is seldom heard	Increase use of digital technologies for research involvement and recruitment, including the introduction of e-consent and web-based self referral. Simplify the consent process for those with cognitive impairments; offer accessible versions of all research materials by 2020 Develop the community partnership model to offer research opportunities to patients who are unable to access clinic based services.
Demonstrate how our research is improving the care that we provide	Showcase outcomes of research on the website, via social media. Embed research into CQC and quality frameworks Demonstrate value at all stages of the research journey, in accordance with the NIHR ‘Adding Value’ ambition Develop integrated Research & Improvement service line reports that focus on impact and learning
Build research capacity and skills across the Trust, so that we can design and lead studies that are relevant to the services we provide	Increase Solent led research and spread to all service lines, Extend the clinical academic training pathway with 6 new posts Develop and deliver a research training programme for staff, patients and colleagues across the organisation and community
Ensure sustainability through income generation	Increase performance based income and commercial activity - four commercial trials by 2020
Facilitate innovation from staff and those who use our services via the Dragon’s Den and other funding streams	Run 4 dragon’s den panels a year, and include bids from or in partnership with patients/ other colleagues.

Priority stream two: Quality Improvement and Clinical Effectiveness

Priority	How we are going to do it
Via programmes of training and support, equip our staff with skills in Quality Improvement, Service Evaluation, Clinical Audit and Clinical Outcomes, and the confidence to identify and deliver their own projects, and use measurement to demonstrate improvement	Provide taught and individual support, based around locally relevant guides and resources, to develop audit, evaluation and Quality Improvement skills. Deliver a training programme that demonstrates both an increase in skills, and a consequent improvement within services. Run two cohorts of the practitioner programme per year, six foundation courses, and develop a Quality Improvement leaders programme
Use Clinical Audit and assessment to provide assurance, benchmark the effectiveness of care and identify improvements	Participate in all relevant national audits, and demonstrate learning and improvement from the annual audit plan Develop the clinical effectiveness SOlNet pages to enable easy access to and searching of evidence and assurance as a result of audit and other projects
Support the development of spread of clinical and patient reported outcome measures across our services	Have at least 3 clinical outcomes in each service lines developed and reporting by 2020
Create networks and mechanisms to share learning from improvements and from excellence	Create improvement networks across the Trust (and beyond), with demonstrable evidence of development, engagement and change that makes a difference to people
Support staff to demonstrate the impact of improvement work on the care that they provide	Deliver training on effective dissemination and writing for publication Create hubs on SolNet & the Academy website for case studies of all projects with learning

Priority stream three: Training and Development

Priority	How are we going to do it
Cultivate a culture where staff are able to continuously improve	Create two physical hubs for the Solent Academy, easily accessible by staff, colleagues and patients across our cities. Produce a learning and improvement framework, use training and showcasing to demonstrate ongoing improvement; roll out research and improvement awards to celebrate success; introduce learning from excellence
Offer skills development pathways and leadership capability for research, clinical academic and improvement careers	Five new Clinical Academic posts, QI leaders programme (as above)
Promote learning from peers, internally and externally, including those who come into contact with our services	Create a go and see fund to support peer learning visits and conference attendance. Share learning opportunities across region (exchange training programme). Identify and target ‘least supported services’
Create an environment where the Academy team have opportunities for personal and professional development, and experience joy in work	Team development programme to continue, team huddles, staff led improvement projects Reflective practice and appreciative enquiry techniques to be part of everyday practice.
Enable learning and recognise outstanding work and excellence through dissemination and showcasing , presentations at external events, an annual conference and an awards scheme

Priority stream four: Partnerships and Engagement

Priority	How we are going to do it
Ensure the patient, service user and community voice is at the forefront of all improvement activity	Enable suggestion portals, paper and virtual across service lines for patients and those that touch our services, and link these with projects
Extend access to research and improvement opportunities by working in partnership with patients, service users, colleagues and community organisations	Establish community research partnership in Southampton, and extend Portsmouth to include public health, social work, schools, dental practices and charities
Encourage and facilitate patient and service user leadership in improvement work	Have six user led projects by 2021
Ensure that the way that we share learning is accessible to all	Share projects in a variety of formats via a variety of media and establish a ‘secret shopper’ audit of learning materials
Ensure that staff have the confidence and skills to work in partnership with patients, service users and our communities	Produce a toolkit for engagement and involvement Deliver training in engagement, practical and theoretical
Work in partnership with our patients, service users and colleagues to deliver the Academy Strategy in accordance with our Side by Side Charter