Quality Network - Spotlight on a Quality Network Regional Lead

Here we find out more about Dr Joe Lipton, Regional Lead for London South-East

Working in medical education, I didn’t see myself as a QI lead—or even particularly experienced in improvement. But over time, I’ve come to realise that successful improvement is rarely just about methods and metrics. It also depends on professional relationships, shared purpose and access to the right opportunities.

This understanding has shaped my work leading the Generic Professional Capabilities (GPC) Hub in South-East London - a three-tiered educational framework that helps resident doctors engage meaningfully with the GPC domains of the curriculum.

Tier 1: Educational Content Delivery
We run symposia and a journal club covering the full range of GPC topics—leadership, education, research, sustainability, QI and more. QI methodology training is supported by local trust transformation teams.

Tier 2: Project Support

We provide a system to help residents find, plan and share their work. Opportunities are advertised, active projects are catalogued on our FutureNHS workspace, and completed work is shared through a case studies library.

Tier 3: Resident Leadership Roles
New leadership roles give residents a voice in local improvement efforts and build stronger links with departments and trust leadership.

This work is closely partnered with the South-East London Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine Network, which connects perioperative care across the three trusts in our Acute Provider Collaborative. Through this, residents access unique cross-site opportunities in service development and improvement.

Our goal is to make non-clinical training time more purposeful, better connected, and more impactful—for trainees and the system alike.

June 2025