Leading Improvement in Health and Care

What does high-quality NHS care look and feel like – and how can a national strategy translate into a better experience for patients?

In this episode of Leading Improvement in Health and Care, Penny Pereira speaks with Professor Frankie Swords, National Medical Director for NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care, and Sarah Barley-McMullen, strategic lived experience partner for NHS England and Chair of Long Covid SOS.

They explore why quality must become the NHS’s guiding principle, encompassing safe and clinically effective care as well as a positive patient experience. The conversation considers the role of leadership and organisational culture, the use of meaningful data and shared metrics, reducing unwarranted variation, and making it easier for people throughout the health and care system to do the right thing.

Sarah brings a vital lived-experience perspective, arguing that quality cannot be understood through performance data alone. It can be felt in whether care is joined up, whether patients are heard and involved in decisions, and whether their experience gives them the confidence to seek help and remain engaged in their care.

Hosted by Penny Pereira, managing director of Q, each episode aims to spotlight where improvement is working well, as well as the challenges it faces. This podcast is part of Learning and Improving Across Systems, a partnership between the Health Foundation, the NHS Alliance and the Q community to support health and care systems to learn and improve.

Additional resources

Recommendations for local leaders onembedding QMS
Embedding and sustaining Quality Management Systems | Q Community
Managing quality during change | Q Community
QMS webinar series - is this still relevant?
Quality Management Systems: resources to help you get… | Q Community

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What does it really take to make change work in the NHS?

In this episode of Leading Improvement in Health and Care, we explore the Scottish Approach to Change—a system-wide effort to rethink how transformation actually happens across health and social care.

Rather than another top-down initiative, Scotland is bringing together quality improvement, service design, strategy, and frontline experience into one unified approach—with a shared language and a clearer pathway for change.

We are joined by Clare Morrison, Director of Engagement and Change at Healthcare Improvement Scotland, who led the development of the Scottish approach to change, as well as two leaders from the Pathfinder sites who have already started embedding it in their organisations. So Gareth Marr, Chief Officer Dumfries and Galloway Health and Social Care Partnership, and Jennifer Champion, Director of Public Health at NHS Forth.

Hosted by Penny Pereira, managing director of Q, and former NHS Confederation chief executive, Matthew Taylor, each episode aims to spotlight where improvement is working well, as well as the challenges it faces. This podcast is part of Learning and Improving Across Systems, a partnership between the Health Foundation, NHS Confederation and the Q community to support health and care systems to learn and improve.

Additional resources

The Scottish Approach to Change - Scottish Approach to Change – Healthcare Improvement Scotland
Q’s An effective approach to change - An effective approach to change | Q Community
Scotland’s Health and Social Care Service Renewal Framework - Health and Social Care Service Renewal Framework - gov.scot
Quality Management System - Quality Management System (QMS) – Healthcare Improvement Scotland
Q’s Quality Management Systems: resources to help you get started - Quality Management Systems: resources to help you get… | Q Community
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Leaders set the tone for improvement, but what does that actually look like in practice?

In this episode of Leading Improvement in Health and Care, highlights from NHS Impact 2026 explore how leadership can move improvement beyond isolated projects and into whole health and care systems. From system thinking and co-production to visible leadership, standard work and the shift from problem-solving to problem-framing, speakers share what it takes to lead change that lasts.

Adam Sewell-Jones, chief executive officer, 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 Pereira, our podcast host, 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

This podcast is part of Learning and Improving Across Systems, a partnership between the Health Foundation, NHS Confederation and the Q community to support health and care systems to learn and improve.

Useful resources

National Improvement Conference 2026 - resources | NHS Confederation
Boost | Our Learning and Improvement Community
NHS England » NHS IMPACT
Leading Healthcare Transformation| Virginia Mason Institute UK
Microsoft PowerPoint - DBA Conference Presentation K Maitra.pptx
UHCW-Leaders infographic.pdf
Point of Care Foundation
NHS England » National Improvement Board

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In this episode we erxplore the role improvment can make in co-production, transforming how clinicians, patients, and healthcare leaders work together to improve outcomes, experience, and system performance.

With inshightful firsthand stories from clinicians, patient leaders, and quality improvement experts, this episode features five guests talking about their experiences of co-producing change. 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 paediatricianpediatrician and Trustee for the National Centre for Creative Health
Victoria Saffin, Assistant Director of Quality Management at Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust

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

Hosted by Penny Pereira, managing director of Q, and Matthew Taylor, chief executive, NHS Confederation, each episode aims to spotlight where improvement is working well, as well as the challenges it faces.

This podcast is part of Learning and Improving Across Systems, a partnership between the Health Foundation, NHS Confederation and the Q community to support health and care systems to learn and improve.

Additional links and resources

Dr Andrea Gibbons (nee Barrow) | LinkedIn
100 Voices | theqihub
About Us | theqihub
Fab NHS Stuff
Peter Lachman | LinkedIn
ISQua - The International Society for Quality in Health Care
Jono Broad | LinkedIn
Amar Shah | LinkedIn
Welcome - Quality Improvement - ELFT
NHS England » NHS IMPACT
Guddi Singh | LinkedIn
National Centre for Creative Health
Victoria Saffin | LinkedIn
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In this episode, we're looking at how improvement can play a role in population health, with examples from Scotland to London. 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, and Ruth Glasborrow, director of Population Health and Wellbeing at Public Health Scotland.

Hosted by Penny Pereira, managing director of Q, and Matthew Taylor, chief executive, NHS Confederation, each episode aims to spotlight where improvement is working well, as well as the challenges it faces.

Links to relevant resources:

Q theory of change
Home | Institute for Healthcare Improvement
Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP) – Healthcare Improvement Scotland
Home | PHS Learning
Support to innovators - Imperial College Health Partners
Scottish Prevention Hub - Edinburgh Futures Institute
Execution of Strategic Improvement Initiatives to Produce System-Level Results | Institute for Healthcare Improvement
Briefing: Improvement as mainstream business | The Health Foundation
Q_Working_with_Data_to_Improve_Access_and_Address_Inequalitiesspreads.pdf
Evidence hub: What drives health inequalities? - The Health Foundation
UK’s campaign for improving health opportunities | Health Equals
Revisiting Relational Coordination: A Systematic Review - Rendelle Bolton, Caroline Logan, Jody Hoffer Gittell, 2021
Improving health and care at scale | NHS Confederation
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