Sheffield’s Central FCA team exhibit at NHS Confed Expo in Manchester

On 14-15 June, the Flow Coaching Academy attended the NHS Confed Expo at Manchester Central. The team spent 48 hours spreading the FCA magic at the UK’s biggest and most significant gathering of healthcare professionals. The stand attracted members of the FCA community including past coaches who shared their experiences of the ‘Improving with people first’ course as well as drawing in other like-minded attendees interested in finding out more about how to make improvement stick. It was an excellent opportunity to highlight the commitment the FCA have to shaping the continuous improvement culture in the NHS.

Last year the NHS Confed exhibition attracted over 6200 visitors across the 2-day event. This gave the FCA a real platform at this year’s event to connect with the wider improvement network, senior leaders, and commissioners of training programmes that build improvement capability. The next two days were jam packed with conversations with new potential community members, where they were given a real insight into what makes the FCA programme different. It was key to highlight the credibility behind the course in supporting the development of sustainable and continuous improvement cultures.

Being located right next to the System Collaboration Zone brought a fantastic opportunity to be close to the action and catch the attention of like-minded people interested in the FCA. This also meant the team were able to be a part of a variety of presentations, panel discussions and social opportunities. Topics included;

• What do you need to do to learn and improve effectively across systems?
• Modelling sustainable care for breast services: how system collaboration can improve referral, capacity and outcomes
• Capturing the learning: supporting the social and economic contribution of ICSs

Jyothi Nippani, on the stand. The team really enjoyed connecting with everyone who visited the stand and were keen to give them a chance to pause, talk and reflect about the power of coaching for improvement.

All visitors were given the gift of ‘a cuppa on the FCA’ a mug filled with tea, coffee, biscuits and a QR code that linked to all the ‘need to knows’ about the FCA.

Nick Miller and Ailsa Brotherton, Director of Continuous Improvement at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

We were delighted to have a steady flow of interested delegates visit our stand including a few familiar faces. A number of our course graduates all made a beeline for our stand and talked unprompted about the impact of the FCA. Of the FCA coaches we connected with, there was an overwhelming sense of community, gratitude and longevity about the impact of our course and FCA Family.

Nick Miller,
Head of the Flow Coaching Academy