Quality Improvement Zone

A Communication and Engagement Plan is a written document that describes who you need to communicate your improvement work to, the purpose of communication with them, the communication method you will use, how often you will communicate and who will communicate with the audiences identified.

This is an example of a blank communication plan template which you can download from the resources below. 

Planning a communication strategy at the very start of improvement work is a key part of the improvement journey that can be easily be overlooked. This tool provides a way to structure communication and engagement planning in order to:

• Generate interest, enthusiasm and support for the improvement work at the outset
• Keep stakeholders informed, up to date and to sustain interest with progress of the improvement work
• Inform stakeholders about the outcomes of the improvement work
• Celebrate success
• Generate interest in adapting the improvement work to spread to wider areas

This tool is relevant at these stages of the Quality Improvement Journey

Communication Planning works best as a team exercise.

Top tips for communication planning:

• Identify the stakeholders, the key people and groups who should be informed about the improvement work and the level of influence they have. Here is a Stakeholder Mapping template
   
• Identify the purpose of the communication for each of the groups identified, for example to engage, sustain interest or share outcomes and celebrate success
   
• Identify what will be communicated. Key features may include: Why this particular improvement work is important, changes, results, lessons learned and next steps
   
• Identify the best method of communicating with each of the groups identified
   
• Identify when each group will receive communication
   
• Identify who in your team will carry out each piece of communication
   
• Some organisations have communication teams and specific branding for the organisation. It would be useful to contact them to check at the start of your communication planning.