People will support what they help to create: clinical governance large group work

The NHS Clinical Governance Support Team (CGST) has completed a pilot “protected‐time programme”, supported by a small team of national facilitators and delivered locally in 19 NHS pilot sites across England. The programme worked on the premise that health professionals can successfully lead service developments when given time and space to do so. The paper describes the methodology behind this initiative, how local events were organised to “get the whole system into the room” and what was learned by applying tried and tested methodologies such as accelerated service improvement. Some of the changes being implemented in participating NHS Trusts are presented in brief, along with a more detailed case study of work undertaken at Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust. Having completed the pilot programme, the team is supporting other CGST activities and applying the learning from working with large groups to improve locally delivered care in NHS organisations.