Focused working groups

These can be seen as the “engine room” of your improvement work. If development of your team is to be successful, it is important that not all the work of planning and implementing improvements is left to the team manager or a few senior staff. CRT clinicians, staff from other parts of the local service, and service users and carers will be well placed to contribute to or lead some pieces of work. We suggest your team sets up working groups to focus on taking forward particular improvement objectives based upon the outputs of the scoping day. Each would be equipped with a statement clarifying “How we would recognise that we had achieved the objectives of this working group” from the Scoping Day. They would also have clarity on

• Lead convenor
• Timescale
• Working methods (e.g. meeting? frequency?)
• Reporting: To whom, when, how. 

You can access a suggested format that may be useful for facilitating working groups. Working groups may find it helpful to use a facilitated SoFAR (Solution Focused Action and Reflection) process to develop action plans.

The focused working groups as a whole will require a framework for collaboration and communication to ensure the work remains aligned and coordinated. This is a SIG function as described above. It needs to ensure that:

a) Working groups’ tasks deliver your team’s overall service improvement plan

b) Plans developed by local working groups are supported by CRT management and can be put into practice once agreed