Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) is a large-scale transformational programme for the NHS that aims to improve the quality of care the NHS delivers, while making up to £20 billion efficiency savings by 2014-15 that will be invested in frontline care.
There are a number of national workstreams designed to support the NHS to achieve the quality and productivity challenge and we are supporting employers by producing guidance, materials, tools and resources to help in the delivery of some key work areas.
Our latest news pages are updated regularly with details of new announcements or initiatives.
NHS Employers Workforce QIPP Community
Due to launch shortly, the NHS Employers Workforce QIPP Community will offer members both an online managed community, where NHS employees with an interest in improving the productivity of their organisation's workforce can come together and share best practice, as well as access a series of webinars, seminars and events that intend to highlight and showcase different approaches to delivering a productive workforce.
The aims of the community are aligned with NHS organisations’ workforce QIPP priorities and will initially be focussed on reducing sickness absence and improving management of trust’s agency use and expenditure. Read more on the Workforce QIPP Community.
Complete our online form to express your interest in joining the community.
Please note: the NHS Employers Workforce QIPP Community is only open to NHS staff.
Reducing agency staffing spend
The NHS has been a set a target of reducing expenditure on temporary staff by £300m by 2014 as part of the QIPP programme. To help you do this, our agency workers pages contain how to guides, case studies and five high impact actions to help you tackle your agency staffing costs.
Improving staff health and well-being and managing sickness absence
Our NHS Well-being at work resource highlights how improvements to staff health and well-being can help with delivering the QIPP challenges. It details actions from the Department of Health's well-being delivery group that they believe will make the greatest difference to embedding staff health and well-being within NHS organisations.
Generating savings by improving health and well-being: Experiences in NHS trusts is the first in a series of communications to support you. It features examples of good practice from across the NHS to help you plan strategies to reduce sickness absence.
Find out more about managing sickness absence and staff health and well-being on our health and well-being pages.
Specific workforce issues
Our nursing workforce pages provide details of a nursing and midwifery project that asked frontline staff to submit examples of high quality and cost effective care that, if adopted, would make a major transformational difference. The project identified eight high impact actions together with a range of improvement tools and tips.
A guide to consultant job planning on our medical workforce pages emphasises the need for consultants and managers to work closely together to meet their shared responsibility of providing the best possible patient care within the resources available.
In response to the Modernising Scientific Careers (MSC) programme and the QIPP agenda, our scientific workforce pages provide some practical advice on implementing MSC and the role of HR in engaging with the healthcare science workforce to ensure that the QIPP benefits of the programme are realised.
We also have information on implementing radiographer reporting which encourages the training of radiographers to report on straightforward x-rays, freeing up time for consultant radiographers to assess more complicated images. There is also guidance published by the Department of Health on developing seven day working in imaging departments.
There is also advice on our support workforce pages for making the best use of your support workers, including our developing your workforce page, which looks at the benefits and challenges employers face when designing the support workforce and the potential solutions of the assistant practitioner and apprenticeship models.
Staff engagement
Staff engagement should be seen as an essential component of developing QIPP programmes. By involving your staff in decisions and communicating clearly with them, you can maintain staff morale, especially during periods of major change in the NHS.
Our staff engagement pages provide a collection of resources that you can use locally, including our Engaging your staff: the NHS staff engagement resource, which is a click-and-go guide that brings together a number of tools, tips and resources. Our maintaining staff engagement during times of change page also lists some tools and techniques from both within the NHS and from outside.
Other resources
The NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement's Productive Series supports the NHS to redesign and streamline the way they manage and work. The series includes the highly successful Productive Ward project and full details can be found on the Institute's website.
The Skills for Health catalogue Improve quality and productivity brings together all their services and solutions covering topics ranging from training courses and e-learning to new role design and wholesale service redesign.
The Department of Health posts regular updates on the QIPP programme on their website, together with case studies from trusts.
The NHS Evidence library also has case studies on improving quality and productivity across a number of clinical pathways.
