The Quality Improvement Hub, based at Healthcare Improvement Scotland, has been designed to create a safe space for health boards and institutes, innovators and other disciplines to work on the quality improvement process and innovate to improve the quality of care in the NHS. We worked with the core team to create a blueprint that outlined a core vision, key relationships and principle statements around how the Hub will be used.

Snook have been working with the core team to ensure that the space will fit with the Hub’s process, journeys and relationships. The flexibility of the physical room reflects the different tasks that it can be used for, but the design ties it to the process. Snook have designed a space which uses the conversations as walls, turning furniture into conversation pieces where the quality improvement process can be brought to life to create action plans for new innovative pieces of work. This space needed to be multi-purpose. It needs to host team meetings, webinars, opening evenings, galleries, with service users and planning sessions. It needs to be flexible and its use needs to stretch into the future.

In order to allow for all of these pieces to be considered during the design and implementation of the innovation hub, Snook have worked closely with the people who will be using the space. We introduced several elements of our Service Design offering, including relationship maps to plot who will use the space, when and for what. We also conducted a (very fun) morning workshop highlighting the benefits of using lego and figures to consider various different scenarios for the space importantly bringing to life the concept of the hub from inside the team’s heads and into a physical model.

The way in which we have been working through the understanding, design and implementation of the innovation hub has introduced the team to a new way of working. We have taught them to be more visual, more actively creative and  a little braver in their idea generation.

We are really looking forward to seeing the final space in action!