The FCA Participates in Q Visit

Early in October in 2023, the Flow Coaching Academy (FCA) welcomed Q members to Sheffield for a Q visit during which they shared practical coaching tools, the FCA improvement roadmap and methodology for improvement coaches.

The day began with the faculty creating the conditions for connection and openness, a humble and fun atmosphere which would enable the participants to experience the FCA way. The FCA programme works in an immersive way and prioritises interpersonal relationships, which the team have learnt and passionately believe underpin the success of improvement.

The day included an overview of the FCA and its course ‘Improving With People First’ and participants heard from 3 Flow Coaching graduates.

Sinead Stanley and Katie Johnson, recent graduates from Sheffield FCA, introduced the co-coaching model with a live case study of their co-coaching journey and Big Room as part of the Integrated Stroke Delivery Network. They shared stories from their Big Room and the impact the FCA methodology has had on the improvement work. In particular, the FCA’s innovative co-coaching model of a clinician immersed in the pathway and an independent coach external to the pathway was brought to life demonstrating how this key relationship brings richness and enquiring diversity to the improvement work.

They spoke with a real passion for the tools, concepts and coaching skills they learned from the FCA and how well the Big Room has been progressing with a real sense of ownership from the participants. Sinead and Katie brought to life the importance of ‘pre-phase’ work to build knowledge and relationships before the improvement work gets underway in the Big Room.

The group also heard from Jen Carroll who spoke about co-coaching the spinal cauda equina Big Room at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals and how the FCA approach has been used to bring together stakeholders from across the system. The Big Room has also innovated and engaged a range of different stakeholders including legal teams to bring their learning to the improvement work. Cauda equina can be hard to spot and unfortunately can result in litigation and life-changing impact to patients and relatives; the legal representatives have brought key insights and themes to the Big Room which is helping inform and improve best practices including GIRFT developments nationally. Jen really brought to life how clinical leadership and team coaching an improvement method can transform care.

During the day the FCA were keen to share a core facet of the ‘FCA way’ bringing thoughts about helping and humble enquiry as the first step to understanding and building the relationships for improvement. Using the recent NHS impact publication as a topic participants had the opportunity to practice humble enquiry and learn about the range of understanding each other had and make connections to their wider work.

The group appreciated the frame of the day and could see how powerful the humble enquiry position that coaches adopt is in allowing space for curiosity, freeing people from having to have all the answers and allowing space to learn and improve collectively. The power of the pre-phase stage of the Flow Roadmap, really resonated with the importance of investing time before the improvement work starts to get consensus, build ownership, expectations and key relationships.

The FCA are passionate about enabling an improvement culture in healthcare and were delighted to be joined by like-minded Q community members.

Thank you to everyone who came to the FCA’s Q Visit. To have the opportunity to share our experiences and what we have learnt about team coaching improvement was special. We are also hugely grateful for the enthusiasm and openness from everyone to collectively share their learning and experience from across the improvement community.

Nick Miller, Head of the Flow Coaching Academy.