History
2015
The Flow Coaching Academy was born out of the success of the Flow Cost Quality Programme and the Microsystem Coaching Academy at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The programme focussed on the relationship between patient flow, cost and outcomes – significantly improving the care of older people.
The Health Foundation granted funding to replicate and scale up the success of the work nationally, with the aim of applying the course to wider healthcare pathways.
2016
After significant work to create a bespoke course that married the value of team coaching with wider QI methodology, the Flow Coaching Academy began delivering its first cohort in October 2016.
2017
The Flow Coaching Academy adopted its academy approach, delivering training to groups of staff at various NHS trusts who could then go on to implement and deliver the course in their local Trusts. The first academy was FCA Bath in 2016, by 2020, 11 organisations across the U.K has set up local FCA’s.
2019
The FCA introduced its Online Improvement Community hosted on the Workplace platform to enable the national network of coaches to better collaborate.
In 2019, the FCA won the BMJ award for ‘Innovation in Quality Improvement’
2020
October
FCA Northern Ireland won the BMJ award in the Innovation in Quality Improvement Team for their work in the Gestational Diabetes Big Room. Read about their award
October 2020: the Gestational Diabetes Big Room from FCA Northern Ireland won the BMJ award for ‘Innovation in Quality Improvement’ leading to two consecutive FCA wins in this category..
November
The Health Foundation published The FCA Learning Report that evaluated the impact of the course over the last 5 years.
They found that nearly 400 coaches, from over 30 NHS trusts and health boards, covering hospital, community and mental health services were trained and over 150 Big Rooms had been set up. These spanned over 85 care pathways, with several FCAs working on the same pathways, such as frailty, sepsis, cancer, and diabetes.
2021
May
The FCA’s first hybrid cohort launched with coaches from Barnet, Enfield and Haringey, King’s College, and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals. The new course was delivered completely virtually via bespoke e-Learning modules and face to face virtual sessions.
September
FCA Lancashire and FCA Northumbria restarted course delivery in their organisations.
October
Virtual delivery enabled the FCA to be delivered in new contexts – across national networks. The second hybrid cohort saw coaches from the UK’s Dementia Network join to collaborate to improve care and processes in their local Dementia pathways.
Finalists: Devon Partnership Trust and Royal Devon and Exeter Foundation Trust for the Mental Health Initiative of the year award, thanks to their ongoing work to connect mental health and physical health services across its gastroenterology pathway.
The Long Covid Programme at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals for the Service User Engagement and Co-production award.
Lancashire Teaching Hospitals: EPR Cancer Pathway Algorithm; Development and Implementation in their FCA Colorectal Big Room.
2022
The FCA’s third hybrid cohort consists of coaches from Parkinson’s Excellence Network, Integrated Stroke Delivery Networks and coaches at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals.
2023
The FCA has surpassed 500 trained coaches who have coached over 200 Big Rooms across the UK and continues to deliver the award-winning course.
2024
The FCA in Sheffield transitioned from training coaches and academies to focus on broadening access to our methodology, tools and learning for the wider Continuous Improvement (CI) community and this new site was created to support this.
Why has this transition taken place? Following 9 years, The Health Foundation’s funding of the FCA came to an end in March 2024. Unfortunately, the FCA has been unable to secure alternative sources of funding to continue the programme sustainably.
The FCA Team at STH will remain available to support enquiries, coaches, and academies. However, their focus will be on developing the learning from the FCA into an ‘improvement leadership’ offer, initially for colleagues at STH and potentially other organisations in the future.
