New podcast series surfaces the human side of improving health and care
100 Voices is a new podcast series, supported by Q, sharing real life experiences of improving health and care; the unexpected discoveries, false starts, turning points, and lessons along the way.
Launched today, a new podcast series shares the human side of improving health care. It was funded by our Supporting Q Connections programme, with contributions from many members across the Q community.
Through thoughtful conversations, the series explores real experiences of navigating questions like: What happens when you see something that could be better and decide to try to change it? When you speak up and aren’t heard? When things don’t go to plan? When you get something wrong, or wonder whether to carry on?
The series doesn’t present polished success stories. It shares honest conversations about what it feels like to try to improve care. It brings together diverse perspectives, including patients and carers, with valuable lessons that complement formal evidence, improvement science and methods.
The stories we tell about improvement are often polished and tidy. Real change rarely is. Patients, carers and staff each see something others may not, and some of the most precious learning lies in what didn’t work, what we’d do differently and how it felt along the way.
100 Voices: How Better Feels shares those hard-won lessons, generously passed from one person to another, so others can learn from them and build on them. Because what one person has learnt the hard way may be exactly what someone else needs to hear.
The first conversations
The first three episodes are out now, with more being released fortnightly. Accompanying each episode is a reflective discussion guide you can use with your team to explore the experiences and lessons shared, and to prompt conversations about what better care could look like in your own setting.
Q member, Jono Broad, combines extensive experience as a patient with national leadership roles in patient safety and healthcare improvement.
In his episode, Jono talks about what happens when organisations stop treating “patient stories” as a tick-box exercise and start treating lived experience as meaningful evidence.
Bringing his own experience to the conversation, he talks about being discouraged from working “for his own good”, the opportunities that changed his life, and the practical changes organisations can make so people aren’t left financially or emotionally worse off because they chose to get involved.
Guddi Singh is a Q member, paediatrician and broadcaster known for her work on health inequalities.
From damp housing and poverty to racism and mental health, Guddi describes the everyday realities shaping children’s health and the frustration of knowing that clinical tools alone cannot fix them.
She reflects candidly on moral distress, burnout and how she has used quality improvement to challenge the status quo and create space for change from within the system.
Jason Leitch is an internationally recognised healthcare leader, former National Clinical Director for Scotland and now Chief of Defence Medical for the UK Ministry of Defence.
Jason shares the moments that changed his path, what it really takes to shift systems at scale, and why finding credible early adopters can be the key to making change happen.
He reflects on how Scotland’s patient safety work grew beyond a programme into a movement that people wanted to join. He also discusses intensity of the COVID-19 pandemic, the personal toll of public visibility, and the importance of focusing on what you can control in the face of complexity.
About the 100 Voices project
Individuals were nominated by others and invited to share their story. There were 170 nominations from across the UK and Ireland. By amplifying the voices and experiences of those working to improve patient care, the series aims to inspire, motivate, facilitate learning and raise the profile of improvement.
100 Voices is led by Andrea Gibbons, who works at Somerset NHS Foundation Trust and created The QI Hub. The project was supported by a Supporting Q Connections award from Q, alongside support from the Academy of Fabulous Stuff, NHS IMPACT, Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, Health Innovation South West and other organisations.
All interviews for the current series have now been conducted. Written stories have also been gathered and will be released over time as part of the wider 100 Voices series.
Discover more
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100 Voices: How Better Feels
Podcast 4 November 2026 3 minute readCandid conversations and personal stories of trying to improve care. -
100 Voices: The human side of improving health and care
Event 25 November 2026Join this conversation with Jono Broad, Gill Phillips, Adeshola Akanji, Amanda Roberts and Andrea Gibbons to explore what it really feels like to try to make health and care better.