Paul Gimson, Author at 1000 Lives Improvement

Paul Gimson

Paul Gimson is the National Primary Care Manager for 1000 Lives Improvement. Follow him on Twitter @pgimmo

Learning to exnovate at #Quality2015

May 122015

Paul Gimson

It was a real privilege to be able to represent 1000 Lives Improvement and Public Health Wales at the 2015 Quality Forum this year.

I expected many things when I went along to but learning a new word was not one of them. The word was ‘Exnovate’ and it was used by Maureen Bisognano, the CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), to highlight the real need for healthcare systems across the word to do less of what isn’t important or needed. It chimed with those of us there from Wales because of its similarities with our own prudent healthcare principle of ‘Do Only What is Needed and Do no Harm.’ The issue of over diagnosis and overtreatment was a theme of many of the sessions within the conference and so it was nice to be able to feedback to Wales that the work we are doing here on prudency is not only ground breaking but it is of international significance.

A care system driven by the people it cares for

Patient driven care, Population health, Quality Improvement No Responses »

Feb 202014

Paul Gimson

Imagine what a primary care service might look like if we gave the patients the money and asked them to design it themselves. This was the story I heard recently at a presentation given by the Southcentral Foundation, a citizen-owned health-service provider based in Anchorage, Alaska.

The presentation was at a recent event in Cardiff looking at Southcentral Foundation’s Nuka system of primary care. It’s ‘A customer-owner driven overhaul of a bureaucratic system centrally controlled, to one in which the local people are in control.’ It is the use of this term customer-owner which is one of the most striking features of the Nuka system.

The idea of a patient as a customer might feel wrong in the context of the NHS, but in this case the term represented a shift from a service designed around a medical model to one where the patient’s needs were put first. The provocative question for us is, if we considered patients as customers would that improve the experience of being a patient in NHS Wales? Continue reading »

How can we move towards a safer working culture?

Quality Improvement No Responses »

Apr 042013

Paul Gimson

We have seen the problems caused by a wrong culture within the banking industry (LIBOR fixing) and within the media industry (phone hacking). We have also recently had a powerful reminder that the wrong culture in healthcare can lead to a drastic reduction in patient safety and quality of care.

The Francis report has shone a spotlight on the attitudes and actions of staff in one small part of the NHS. The report makes for uncomfortable reading for all of us. The accounts of appalling lack of care are so shocking and difficult to equate with our core principles as health professionals, that it is easy to feel a sense of distance from them. Continue reading »