Podcast: Leading Improvement in Health and Care

In this episode, we share highlights from the National Improvement Conference

Thursday 26 March 2026

We learn together about what it takes to move beyond improving individual services and organisations to drive change across whole systems, and in particular, the importance of leadership and how leaders can model the behaviours that enable all staff to improve the care they deliver. 

You will hear from several of the speakers: 

• Adam Sewell-Jones, Chief Executive, East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust
• Nicola Burgess, Professor of Operations Management, University of York
• Andy Hardy, Chief Executive, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust 

And for the last session of the day, Penny hosted a panel discussion exploring how improvement can move beyond individual projects and begin to reshape whole pathways of care with staff and populations. Joining her was: 

• Caroline Clarke, NHS London Regional Director
• David Fillingham, a Chair in the NHS and Chair of the National Improvement Board
• Rich Amos, Patient Partner with NHS England 

You can find a link to further resources from the conference in the show notes below. 

In this episode, we’re looking at co-producing change.

Thursday 26 February 2026

We hear from five people talking about the important role co-production plays in improvement, and looking at it from different angles, including an international perspective, lived experience and clinical insight. 

Our guests are: 

• Peter Lachman, former CEO of ISQUA, the International Society for Quality in Healthcare, and one of the early Quality Improvement Fellows funded by the Health Foundation
• Jono Broad, volunteer and patient leader in improvement and an active member of the Q community
• Amar Shah, Clinical Director for Improvement in England, and former Chief Quality Officer at East London NHS Foundation Trust
• Dr Guddi Singh, consultant pediatrician and Trustee for the National Centre for Creative Health
• Victoria Saffin, Assistant Director of Quality Management at Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust 

This is your first chance to get a taste of an amazing project: 100 Voices. Led by Dr Andrea Gibbons, from Somerset NHS Foundation Trust and Founder of The QI Hub, the project supported by Q, is developing a bank of personal stories of people leading improvement. 

In this episode, we’re looking at how improvement can play a role in population health, with examples from Scotland to London. 

Thursday 29 January 2026

We hear about the approaches needed to achieve change that spans large systems and addresses inequities in experience and outcomes. 

Our guests are: 

• Dominique Allwood, Director of Population Health at Imperial College Healthcare
• Ruth Glassborow, Director of Population Health and Wellbeing at Public Health Scotland. 

In this episode, we’re looking at how improvement approaches can help redesign services for frail older people, taking a whole system approach. 

Tuesday 16 December 2025

We hear practical advice from a national and local perspective on how to inspire and support change that spans different departments and sectors. 

Our guests are: 

• Dr Tom Downes, consultant geriatrician at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, and national clinical director for older people.
• Dr Simon Harlin, GP and community clinical lead, Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust
• Peter Chessum, associate director of nursing, Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust 

In this episode we explore how improvement methods can support the move to a future neighbourhood health service, building on great work that has already taking place when it comes to moving services closer to people’s homes. 

Thursday 23 October 2025

Hear examples of work that is already taking place to move services into neighbourhoods and what some of the barriers are to making that improvement across the health and care sector. 

Our guests are: 

• Heather White, practice manager and lead manager for South Hambleton and Ryedale Primary Care Network
• Catherine Heffernan, director of health improvement in South West London Integrated Care Board 

In the third episode we look at the role of improvement in digital

Wednesday 10 September 2025

In this episode we explore how improvement methodologies can enable NHS leaders to implement digital transformation successfully. 

Hear practical examples of how to better engage staff and communities, really understand problems systemically and target resources effectively, and implement technology in a way that releases time to care. 

This episode includes guests from the mental health and community sectors and examples of acute providers working out in the community. The three shifts – left shift, (the shift of activity out of hospitals to those delivered closer to home), prevention and digital – need to support each other. And yet when we talk about digital, we too often focus primarily on the acute sector. 

Our guests are: 

• Sadia Khan, clinical lead for innovation at West Middlesex University Hospital
• Abigail Harrison, executive director for digital estates and improvement at Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust. 

In the second episode we look at how to resource improvement.

Thursday 26 June 2025

In this episode we explore how to resource improvement and transformation in the NHS.  It was recorded live at NHS ConfedExpo in Manchester. 

Our guests look at how the NHS of tomorrow can come to the aid of the NHS today. They take a wide lens view on how all the finances and resources available over the next decade can best be used to deliver on the ten-year health plan, and the important role of the improvement movement in supporting this NHS transformation. 

We also explore how East London NHS Foundation Trust has successfully embedded and resourced an improvement approach across the organisation. 

Our guests are: 

• Professor Paul Corrigan, CBE, strategic adviser at the Department for Health and Social Care 
• Dr Amar Shah, Chief Quality Officer at East London NHS Foundation Trust, and National Clinical Director for Improvement for NHS England 

In this first episode of season two, we are exploring how to mobilise change in the context of the ten-year health plan for the NHS.

Thursday 22 May 2025 

The scale of ambition for transforming healthcare means doing things very differently and, in conversation with our guests, we look at which approaches to change are most likely to be effective, and the practicalities of combining change at a national and system level with implementing improvement at the point of delivery. 

Our guests are: 

• Dr Gary Howsam, Chief Clinical Improvement Officer, for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough ICB 
• Dr Annie Williamson, Research Fellow working on health and social care for the IPPR Commission on Health and Prosperity, and a practicing doctor in the NHS with direct experience in improvement work 

In the sixth episode of our Leading Improvement in Health and Care podcast, we look at productivity. 

Thursday 14 November 2024

We explore different system approaches to improving productivity, with two leaders who have been creative and collaborative in working to successfully reduce waiting times.

In this episode we explore different system approaches to improving productivity – our guests are: 

• Dr Peter Scolding, Clinical Director of Stewardship for Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board, on recognising frontline leadership and developing a stewardship model for system working. 
• Dr Ruth Gray, Assistant Director of Quality Improvement and Innovation at South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust, Northern Ireland, on using system eco-mapping to improve domiciliary care services. 

Peter talks about taking inspiration from the work of Nobel prize winner Elinor Ostrom to improve care pathways across Mid and South Essex, creating improved resource sharing and crucial reductions in waiting lists. 

Ruth shares her story of how her trust released 900 hours of domiciliary care, reducing waiting times significantly. They achieved this through workshops and conversations with stakeholders, staff and patients, that led to the creation of a visual system eco-map, identifying improvement areas for their domiciliary care service. 

In the fifth episode of our Leading Improvement in Health and Care podcast, we look at equity.

Thursday 17 October 2024

We talk to two East London leaders who have been at the forefront of efforts to improve population health, with equity front and centre. 

In this episode we hear about some of the pioneering work being carried out in East London to reduce health inequalities. 

• Dr Guddi Singh is a paediatric doctor and co-founder of the Wellbeing and Health Action Movement (WHAM) – a powerful project bringing together children’s health professionals to fight poverty in clinical practice. 
• Marie Gabriel CBE is Chair of North East London Integrated Care Board and Chair of the NHS Race and Health Observatory, working to bring anti-racism models into healthcare improvement. 

Guddi shares her work as a consultant paediatrician in Newham, East London, where she realised there was a big connection between improving services in the most deprived borough of London* and increasing levels of joy and commitment among the staff working there. She found the best way to engage people in quality improvement, was to start by asking 
what they care about most. 

Marie explores the importance of learning from patients’ lived experiences to improve services and tackle the structural racism that is embedded within those services.  She talks about placing resident participation at the heart of the leadership team, engaging with and listening to local people about priorities for change. 

*According to the Index of Multiple Deprivation. 

Black Maternity Matters is a ground-breaking collaboration tackling the inequitable maternity outcomes faced by black mothers and their babies.

Thursday 12 September 2024

In the UK, black mothers are up to four times more likely to die during pregnancy or in the postnatal period (six weeks after childbirth) than white women.

The systemic biases and structural racism behind the figures is an area where improvement has the potential to make real impact. 

Black Maternity Matters is a ground-breaking collaboration tackling the inequitable maternity outcomes faced by Black mothers and their babies. They’re working to support maternity systems to offer safer, equitable care for all. 

We talk to three of their improvement leaders at: 

• Sonah Paton, Founding Director of Black Mothers Matter, collaborative partner on Black Maternity Matters. 
• Noshin Menzies, Senior Project Manager, Health Innovation West of England 
• Ann Remmers, Maternity and Neonatal Clinical Lead, Health Innovation West of England 

During this episode guests and hosts use the term ​‘racialised as black’, alongside talking about the experience of black mothers, parents, and Black children. The use of ​‘racialised’ acknowledges that white-centric societies have systemically categorised people according to the colour of their skin, or their culture. 

This act of racialising people with healthcare leads directly into these stark differences in experiences of care, treatment, and health. As Esmee Fairburn put it, “‘racialised’ doesn’t define people’s community or identity, but the phenomenon that is happening to them” 

Episode topics include maternal loss and baby loss.

Using different models to improve patient flow through the system can support better patient care – hear from our three experts.

Thursday 8 August 2024

Flow – the way a patient or a service user moves through different stages in the health care system – is vital for good patient care.

In this episode we explore how applying the values and methods that are essential to improving flow, can have a powerful impact on how health and care services can work better for both patients and staff. 

We hear from three great speakers: 

• David Fillingham, chair of the National Improvement Board and chair of Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust is a pioneer when it comes to flow and talks about the importance of improving it. 
• Steve Harrison, Deputy Director of Organisational Development of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, which has been at the centre of flow improvement, explains what flow means in practice, as well as introducing the Flow Coaching Academy approach. 
• Ailsa Brotherton, Director of Continuous Improvement and Transformation at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals, shares her lessons about successfully turning the academy approach into action. 

Amar Shah, Samantha Allen, Sarah Sweeney and Dr Vin Diwaker on how improvement is both a mindset and a method.

Thursday 11 July 2024

In this special episode, recorded live at NHS ConfedExpo in June, hosts Penny Pereira and Matthew Taylor explore how improvement is both a mindset and a method. For it to work well, co-production and the space to reimagine how services work and are organised, are essential. 

You’ll hear highlights and reflections from Penny and Matthew’s sessions and contributions from an array of guest speakers: 

• Amar Shah, National Clinical Director for Improvement and Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist and Chief Quality Officer at East London NHS Foundation Trust 
• Samantha Allen, Chief Executive, North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board
• Sarah Sweeney, Director of Membership and Development, National Voices 
• Dr Vin Diwaker, Interim National Director of Transformation, NHS England 

Annie Laverty and John Drew provide a fresh take on the role of staff engagement in health and care improvement.

Thursday 2 May 2024

Hosted by Penny Pereira and Matthew Taylor, this new podcast spotlights the people leading the way when it comes to improving health and care in systems and services

People are at the heart of improvement. In our first episode, we explore improving staff engagement and morale. Director of patient and staff experience at Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Annie Laverty, talks about using data to understand what matters to staff and enhance engagement. We also hear from John Drew, director of staff experience and engagement at NHS England, who discusses using the NHS Staff Survey to steer improvement and how we might engage people better on productivity.