The Government has set new targets for sexual health services, including a 48 hour access target to be achieved by March 2008.

NHS West Midlands wanted to look at their genito urinary medicine (GUM) capacity issues and support staff to identify and understand existing issues. They also wanted to equip them with some of the quality improvement tools and techniques to further develop services in line with Department of Health guidance and recommendations. After discussion, they felt that a Sexual Health Quality Improvement Skills Programme would be of benefit.

Visits were made to all the interested teams prior to the programme start to discuss the programme itself and also to develop a quantifiable baseline understanding of current demand and capacity pressures in each GUM clinic.

All 3 learning workshop days were very well attended with GU consultants, nurses, managers and administration teams. The programme evaluated very well and local difficulties around the targets were discussed such as lack of rooms, skill mix, fragmented services, problems around accountability to differing organisations and lack of funding.

Comments included:

• We would have rushed to inappropriate solutions without use of tools
• We didn't know what we really were providing - we had fragmented services
• It made us consider the change management process
• We learned how to work with the resources we've got
• We learned how to start the project.

There are still issues around 48 hour access within the region but work is on-going using the tools and techniques to continue to improve services.