Q: Another draw on my ever shrinking capacity or a rare opportunity not to be missed?

When immersed in a day job which is all consuming, I think one of the essential skills is to weed out the good new opportunities from the energy sapping and slightly off-piste initiatives that fly our way on a regular basis. I tend to triage them using a couple of simple criteria – will they deliver a positive impact and is it within my area of delivery?

As Associate Director for the Wessex Patient Safety Collaborative (PSC) our team works in partnership all day and every day with local organisations, teams and individuals to improve patient safety using quality improvement.

I saw Q members excited about what they were doing and the people they were connecting with on a local, regional and national basis.

At the beginning of Q, our role was to facilitate the recruitment of the founding cohort and to start hosting regular meetings of Wessex Q members. I saw Q members excited about what they were doing and the people they were connecting with on a local, regional and national basis. I heard discussion of events, special interest groups (SIGs), randomised coffee trials (RCTs), learning labs (what on earth are they?), Q visits and much more…

I felt I was missing out. Hmm…need to join. So I joined.

So, horrific drain on energy and time or a positive opportunity?

I’ve attended events, joined the Primary Care SIG, had three or four RCTs, visited GlaxoSmithKline and linked with some really interesting colleagues. It sort of feels like I have an improvement family; sounds a bit weird but I’m going with the flow. I like the fact it’s a community that we all want to be members of (no one told me to join), we control the amount of time we give (massive flexibility), we have opportunities to attend great events and visits and that we can connect across the UK.

Locally, we have just started the regional Wessex Q recruitment and it’s an exciting time. We already have a vibrant Q community in Wessex; we now want to expand it by inviting many more people to experience Q. With the Wessex application window open until June 12 we can’t wait to see how the community will grow both locally and across the UK.

So far Q is getting the thumbs up from me.

New friends, flexible interaction, good mix of face-to-face and virtual opportunities, peer support, learning new stuff, free. What’s not to like…I think I might stay.

By Tracy Broom, Wessex Patient Safety Collaborative (PSC)

The latest round of applications to join the Q community is open in Wessex. Find out more here.