October 3, 2013

We’re Getting Better and Better All the Time

By Jane Evans, Head of Quality Management.

Well hello everyone, if I haven’t already met you my name is Jane Evans and I joined PSS a couple of months ago. My first impression of PSS has been how warm and welcoming people have been to me – I’ve never worked anywhere that compares, and I’ve worked in lots of places over the years. Most recently I was a Commissioning Manager and Personalisation lead.

So, I’m here as the Head of Quality Management, a completely new post at PSS, and although I’ve had a strong sense of what quality is, as I’ve talked to people about their work and services I’ve been keen to ask people what they think quality is and what they think my role should be.

What struck me is the shared view we all have of quality –“it’s what I’d want”, or “I’d want it for my mum”; “it’s in everything we do”;” it’s making a better life for people”. It also struck me how proud people are of the services we offer, and nobody I spoke to could talk to me without sharing a story about somebody they supported whose life had literally turned around.

So our shared view is that quality is about people having a good experience of support; of us providing services that are safe; and providing services that are effective i.e. have a real impact on people’s lives.

Do I have anything to do here, then? Well, I guess I still think I do! People did have concerns about being able to show and evidence what we do. It is not always easy to find the right policies or guidance in the right place –and people wanted to get even better at what they did and the services they offer. I think this reinforces what I think my role is about – driving forward a shared vision for quality and for quality improvement and in supporting and helping evidence what good quality looks like, at the front line with the people we support.

What I’d like you to do is to think about your own role in quality –what can you do to make a real difference to people’s lives and offer an even better service to all who use it?

And finally, a story of my own. Many years ago, soon after I qualified as an Occupational Therapist I was asked to see a lady who’d had a really quite mild stroke, but had become depressed and tearful about it all. She was an elderly lady with a loving and caring family. One day we talked about baking and I suggested she made scones – good for hand control etc. On Monday she was transformed –she’d made scones for her family, but you know it was only years later it dawned on me that the making of scones was about her aspirations and what mattered to her in life – to be an important part of the family, to be a giver in the family, to have her role confirmed back.

I hope this story leaves you with an uplifted feeling about your everyday contribution to the lives of others, you should all be very proud and I look forward to working with you to change even more lives for the better.

Thanks for reading

Jane