This year ‘s internal RIQI event celebrated some of the incredible Research, Innovation and Quality Improvement programmes that Trust staff are implementing including abstracts entitled:

• Reducing carbon emissions; one gas at a time
• Technology at its peak: Application of DrDoctor in Endoscopy Pre-Assessment Service
• TransPlus; a new Gender Dysphoria service for England
• Urgent Skin Cancer Teledermatology Service

Our annual RIQI event is a great opportunity to showcase the amazing work at our Trust and to share learnings to accelerate the deployment of innovative approaches to improving the way we care for our patients and the way we run our hospitals.

The challenges facing health and care services today are well documented. So too is the centrality of innovation in addressing them. We need new ways of doing things and events like RIQI ensure we’re sharing new ideas, improvements and innovations and driving wider roll-out and adoption.

Each day of the RIQI event had a different focus – sustainability, partnerships, and ‘RIQI is everyone’s business’ – with a different keynote speaker and five poster presentations every day. The extensive breadth and depth of research and innovation showcased cross-organisation, cross-department, and cross-team collaborations making a real difference to patient care.

This years winner was the Tele-Dermatology service on their award winning tele-dermatology entry. Patients can now attend medical photography for their very first appointment, where their images are reviewed by a consultant remotely, meaning an overall better experience. This is a fantastic step forward for early diagnosis of skin cancer.

Chris Chaney, Chief Executive of CW+ and speaker at RIQI 2021, explains: “At this year’s RIQI, the theme of ‘determined to develop’, which is one of the Trust’s PROUD values, penetrated every part of this three-day event. It’s brilliant to see the creative responses of our staff, especially after the last 18 months when they’ve been under unprecedented pressure.”