Improving Quality, Change Management & Leadership Summative Assignment Guidelines
Guidance for Summative Assignment
Assessment 3000-word change report .
• Please ensure that you complete an assignment front sheet and submit this as your first
page. This MUST have your student number on it and word count. There is no +10% or -10%.
If you go over, up to 3000 words will be marked.
• Note that you should insert page numbers as this helps the marker to feedback on specific
sections.
• You must use headings as this is a report. It will also help you to address the key points. You
can have some flexibility as to how you organise this but ensure that it creates a logical flow
for the reader.
The change report should:
• identify a problem/challenge in practice that could be addressed
• Identify how this will be addressed through a simple change in practice that will
improve quality.
• Critically analyse how the change would be implemented and include discussion
around quality improvement, change management models and processes, challenges
to change, leadership influences and inter professional working and co-production.
Things to consider about your change idea (and some questions to ask yourself) :
• Changes in one area can have an impact or affect demand and delivery in another area or
service. Will your change idea impact on anyone else? How will you address this?
• Where possible consider how you can include service users as part of the inter-professional
team.
• Read around the topic of change. Engage with up to date literature, policies and local health
reports to support and justify the need for change. Be careful not to inadvertently identify
the Trust. Use ‘local trust’ always.
• Consider any barriers or challenges that there may be to your change idea and how will you
manage this. How may people object to the change? What can be done to convince them
that this is necessary and can improve quality care? Suggested Format
(Remember you should not write in first person).
Title of Change Report (No more than 50 words that distil the essence of the report).
Introduction
• A broad overview of the change report , what you are seeking to achieve.
• Some justification for change which you have identified from practice using any papers to support
the need for change.
• Briefly identify one change model you will be using. (This will be applied in detail but you can refer
to other models for comparing and contrasting).
Background
• Provide background information and explain why the change is needed at local level and any
evidence to underpin this.
This could include local/national policy, patient feedback, audits etc and must be supported by
literature or policy. You can and should include how you could involve service users and coproduction in the development and how this can add to the process.
Implementing the change (this will be the main body of your report and can be sub-sectioned
into a logical order that will complement the change project)
You can use the headings of the model to help you but do not just describe these. You should link
the model to your change.
• Introduce your chosen change management model/framework. Justify why you
have chosen this as opposed to other models. Critically analyse the suitability to
your change idea, with reference to literature and good change management
theory. There should be some comparing and comparison as a start to analysis.
• Consider strategies (from your reading) that will overcome barriers to change and
anticipate how you can follow through the model. Think about communication
methods and you could link this to leadership styles if you wish?
• Discuss and define the impact on other people using the concept of coproduction
and remembering that changing one part of the system will have a potential
impact on another part of the healthcare system.
• Explain how various tools that are available could help to support the
implementation e.g. PDSA, 5 whys and fishbone
• Justify and explain your leadership approach in relation to the relevant theory.
Think about the styles of leadership and which will work or not work for the stage
of the change.
• Discuss how change will be evaluated and how will you know that quality of care
has been enhanced. This could include audit measures.
Conclusion
Conclude and summarise the importance of this change, how you have overcome the challenges and
how you see the impact on quality enhancement. Additional tips (based on last year submission and the marking grid)
• Referencing – make sure you follow the LSBU Harvard System. Marks can be lost for poor or
inconsistent referencing and basic mistakes.
• Good grammar and spelling. Take time to read your work through carefully. Does it make
sense to you? Will it make sense to another reader? Use available tools to check spelling and
grammar.
• Logical flow and well organised work
• Critically analyse within the work. You will need to have read a range of literature around
the topics or change management, communicating change, change models, improving
quality and leadership. This will help you to think about your change plan and consider
whether this will work, what the challenges could be and how the literature suggests you
can address change.
• Include a good range and depth of literature. It is not enough at this stage to only use
webpages and internet sources. You need to show that you have read around the topics in
depth. Look at the Moodle reading list as a starting point.
