Presentations that included active consumer involvement stood out as particularly strong. Several projects featured ways to ‘gamify’ improvement, to engage and motivate staff to participate and engage enthusiastically. Rather than focusing on mistakes, elements of friendly competition meant that staff were recognised, celebrated and rewarded for their participation in improvement work. This approach tended to lead to positive outcomes and adoption of better practices. Everyone in a health service, both clinical and non-clinical, contributes to a patient’s experience.
Health services have complex challenges, many of which have been thorny problems for a long time. It is easy to feel daunted- from both internal and consumer advocacy perspectives- by bureaucratic systems, limited resources and time, but even small monthly efforts can make a difference. Many presenters were showcasing projects that had started small and had not waited for funding or widespread support to begin work on their improvement ideas. We appreciated the opportunity to be inspired and encouraged by good work from around Australia and the world.
A key message that stayed with us was, “Progress is made at the speed of trust.” So much of improvement work relies on building relationships that create trust between people, at big and small scales, and it is this trust that drives real change. | 
