Keynote reflection from Helen Bevan OBE In May 1996, I was invited to present my local improvement work from the Leicester Royal Infirmary, UK, at a new conference in London, UK: the European Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare, now known as the International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare. I had been working in healthcare present my work in New Zealand. These opportunities expanded my world.
improvement since 1991, when there were far fewer improvers, people taking a systematic approach to improving healthcare delivery. That first International Forum was where I first met improvers from other countries, including Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, and the United States. I felt I had found my community: peers, mentors, and potential collaborators, learning from different perspectives and broadening how we approached challenges and solutions. I was eager to attend the next meeting in Paris, where I joined a minicourse on improvement methods led by Tom Nolan and Paul Plsek. Although I was an experienced improver, the course crystallised my thinking and changed my practice. In Vienna in 1998, I led a workshop on the human dimensions of change, which led to an invitation to
Thirty years have now passed since 300 people met at that first gathering in London. I have taken part in every European meeting, and several in Asia and Australasia. It has persevered through major challenges, including the 2010 event in Nice, when the Icelandic ash cloud grounded flights and the programme was rewritten the day before it began, and the covid pandemic, when it moved online. The people I met through this community remain my professional home. Its impact in spreading actionable improvement methods, evidence, and relationships worldwide cannot be overstated. One of its most important contributions has been to normalise quality improvement and patient safety as core leadership and
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