Collaboratives and Learning Sets

Collaboratives

The Alcohol Improvement Programme (AIP) will help to establish and support regional or local Alcohol Improvement collaboratives, with the aim of identifying, promoting and sustaining improvements to services that have the biggest impact on reducing alcohol related harm.

There will be a focus on the identification and implementation of strategies to achieve transformation in services through the introduction of evidence-based 'High Impact Changes'. This is likely to involve determining outcomes, innovative and best fit service delivery options, cost-effective interventions and steps toward a developing a capable workforce that will make a real difference to service users and carers.

Local project groups will be formed to analyse local need, and plan and implement improvement changes. The groups should ideally be cross sector and work across organisational and team boundaries and should include a senior clinician. Improvement methods, such as "PDSA Cycles" (Plan Do Study Act) or Rapid Cycle Reviews, are used by the group to rapidly deliver local sustained improvement. The collaborative develops local staff for future innovation and improvement work.

Specific Action Learning sets (see below), learning workshops and development opportunities for participating teams and organisations will be arranged. This will deliver improvement guidance enabling each team to focus on their local needs and plan the most suitable methods for taking forward their work. Results reported through the teams will be monitored to assist the teams to identify their progress against their objectives. The programme will facilitate information sharing across the teams to ensure lessons are rapidly learnt and disseminated.

Collaboratives will be encouraged to get local commitment for their work from health, social care and criminal justice commissioners. This is more likely to be achieved by demonstrating the benefits of the projects (financial and otherwise), which is more likely to lead to mainstreaming of services to ensure longer-term sustainability.

Action Learning Sets

Action Learning Sets are small groups of individuals who support one another in learning and development in an area where they have an interest and wish to increase their expertise. Regional or local 'change agents' will act as 'facilitators' for the Action Learning Sets and manage the processes involved in the collaboration. Action Learning Sets can support organisations in the development and implementation of specific approaches to service improvement, for example the introduction of 'Identification and Brief Advice' in a primary care setting.

Sets will be focussed around the identification and implementation of strategies to achieve transformation in services through the introduction of 'High Impact Changes'. So, for example, sets could be established around issues such as:

• Development of Alcohol Identification and the delivery of Brief Advice (IBA)
• Improving the effectiveness of specialist treatment and access to specialist treatment
• Commissioning
• Social Marketing

A range of information will be provided for participants. It will include:

• Case studies drawn from HubCAPP of successful alcohol improvement activity identifying key staff development issues.
• Signposting to resources available from other agencies eg. NST, Alcohol Concern, the SIPs progamme, E-Learning for Healthcare etc.

For more information see the High Impact Changes pages or contact us via email.