Improvement Advisor Professional Development Programme: United Kingdom

By the end of this programme, you will be able to:

• Develop your skills in leading improvement efforts in your organisation
• Achieve results in your improvement project
• Use the system of profound knowledge to guide your work
• Use Shewhart charts to understand variation
• Develop projects informed by Planned Experimentation to understand the cause-and-effect system producing the outcomes 

Each participant is required to direct one or more improvement projects (connected to her or his organisation’s business plan) throughout the programme.

The project provides a double benefit — a chance to achieve results in an active improvement project and a living laboratory to apply learning. The improvement project may be in any one of three categories:

• Improving quality of care and services
• Reducing costs while maintaining or improving quality
• Expanding patient or customer satisfaction with the development of new services or innovative ways of providing existing services

The design of this programme allows participants to achieve maximum results by immediately applying the skills they learn to everyday work situations.

It is this combination of theory applied to daily work that makes the Improvement Advisor Professional Development Programme unique and provides a foundation for making improvements long after the programme is completed.

​​​​​Health care professionals who are currently regarded as leaders of improvement efforts within the organisation and who want to deepen their knowledge and enhance their effectiveness in this role. Often these individuals hold titles such as:

Amar Shah, MD, Dr Amar Shah is Consultant forensic psychiatrist & Chief Quality Officer at East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT). He leads at executive and Board level at ELFT on quality, performance, strategy, planning, data and analytics. Amar has led the approach to quality at ELFT for the past 10 years, and has embedded a large-scale quality improvement infrastructure and quality management system, with demonstrable results across key areas of organisational performance. Amar is the first National Clinical Director for Improvement at NHS England, leading the application of improvement across England’s health and care system. He is the national improvement lead for mental health at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, leading a number of large-scale improvement collaboratives on topics such as restrictive practice, workforce wellbeing and equalities. Amar is chair of the Scientific Advisory Group at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), and also acts as faculty with IHI, teaching and guiding improvers and healthcare systems across the world. He is a member of the Q advisory Board at the Health Foundation and a member of the reference group for the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare. He is on the health advisory board for the UCL global business school for health, and a Council member for the Healthcare Costing for Value Institute. He is honorary visiting professor at City University (London) and the University of Leicester. Amar has completed an executive MBA in healthcare management, a masters in mental health law and a postgraduate certificate in medical education. Amar is a regular national and international keynote speaker at healthcare improvement conferences and has published over 50 peer-review articles in the field of quality management. He was awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in 2024 for services to healthcare improvement.

Rebecca Steinfield, MA, Senior Director and Improvement Advisor, has been with IHI since 1996.  She currently serves as Director of IHI’s Improvement Advisor Professional Development Program, teaches IHI courses on improvement methods, and mentors “improvers-in-training.” Rebecca sits on IHI’s Improvement Science and Methods team and serves as an Improvement Advisor on results-oriented work. 

Susan Hannah, Senior Director for Europe Region and Strategic Partners, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), has a background in high-care nursing and expertise as a leader for patient safety and clinical improvement in Scottish healthcare, responsible for the delivery of patient safety in a health system and as faculty for the national programme. A trained Improvement Advisor with IHI, she worked in the Scottish Government for 6 years, performing improvement and leadership roles to influence the adoption of quality strategies and improvement science in government policy teams and across public services. Susan led the design and delivery of a national Raising Attainment for All QI Collaborative for education, later amalgamating this with the Early Years Collaborative to establish and lead the Children and Young People Improvement Collaborative; a large-scale national programme that delivers multiagency quality improvement communities working to improve health and achievement outcomes across Scotland.​

Robert Lloyd, PhD, Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), provides leadership in the areas of performance improvement strategies, building capacity and capability for improvement, statistical process control methods, and development of strategic dashboards. He also serves as faculty for various IHI initiatives and demonstration projects in the US and abroad. Before joining IHI, Dr. Lloyd served as the Corporate Director of Quality Resource Services for Advocate Health Care (Oakbrook, IL), Director of Quality Measurement for Lutheran General Health System, Senior Director at the Hospital Research and Educational Trust of AHA, and spent ten years with the Hospital Association of Pennsylvania in various leadership roles. He is author of numerous articles, reports, and books.