As we approach the end of the year, we’re taking a moment to reflect on the incredible work, learning, and collaboration that shaped 2025.
We’ve chosen to share 12 key moments from this year that showcase how we’ve worked together to drive improvement, support leadership, and make a real difference across health and care.
From inspiring conversations to impactful projects, these highlights tell the story of progress and partnership.
As we look back on the past 12 months, we’re proud of the milestones that have shaped our journey. One of the biggest highlights?
This wasn’t just a new logo or colour palette – it was a step forwards to reflect who we are today and where we’re heading. Our refreshed identity represents our commitments to innovations, collaboration, and delivering even greater value to the people and communities we work with.
But that’s just the beginning. Over the past year we’ve achieved so much together, and we can’t wait to share more of these moments with you.
As 2025 comes to a close, we’re proud to celebrate the incredible NW Masterclass series that brought together leaders, innovators, and practitioners across health and social care to share ideas and drive meaningful change.
It has been a privilege to partner with some fantastic organisations across the North West: MIAA, North West Employers, NHS North West Leadership Academy, and Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS)
This year, we explored some of the most pressing and inspiring topics shaping our sector:
Each session sparked rich conversations, practical insights, and collaborative action. Thank you to everyone who joined us, shared expertise, and helped make these masterclasses a success.
You can find out more about our Collaborative Masterclasses here.
This year, we launched our Strategic Alliance – a flexible, impact-driven membership model designed to help health and care organisations tackle their most pressing challenges.
Whether your focus is enhancing patient safety, developing leadership, or improving operational efficiency, we provide bespoke solutions tailored to your needs.
How it works:
Here’s what makes our Strategic Alliance unique, and how we’ve been driving impact in 2025.
We’re proud to be working in partnership with Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Trust to deliver a bespoke Improvement Leaders Programme, co-designed and co-delivered with their in-house Quality Improvement team. This ambitious development programme is tailored to support senior and aspiring senior leaders in driving and facilitating improvement across organisational, place, and system levels.
Liam Doyle, Deputy Director of Quality Improvement at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, shared:
“As adult providers across the Liverpool City Region come together, we wanted to create a bespoke programme with our colleagues at Aqua focused on Leading Improvement. Our goal was to unite colleagues from our five providers to explore our shared approach to improvement and learn from each other’s experiences.
“There’s huge potential in this group forming, and the benefits for our patients are clear. But, as with any organisation, our greatest asset is our people—they are the architects of what we can achieve together. This course brings a cohort of these individuals together, and we’re excited to see what they accomplish.”
Leading Integrated Teams (LIT) one of Aqua’s flagship programmes, delivered in collaboration with Affina OD, Aspire, and PACE.
Since its launch in 2017, nearly 200 participants have completed the programme. LIT helps leaders across health and care enhance team effectiveness using Affina OD tools, while also refining their leadership style and approach to improvement.
In September, we celebrated the achievements of our latest cohort at a special event – recognising their fantastic progress and commitment throughout the programme.
One participant shared their feedback:
“Overall I really enjoyed this course and I came away feeling really empowered and confident.”
Our End of Year Report for 2024 – 2025 captures a year of significant evolution for Aqua. At the heart of this journey is our refreshed strategy, positioning Aqua as the improvement alliance of choice across the health and care system.
Working closely with our customers, we’ve strengthened our focus on three core areas of expertise:
The report highlights key programmes, partnerships, and measurable impact delivered across 2024 – 2025, showcasing how we’ve supported organisations to achieve positive outcomes.
Take a look at the full report here.
This year we launched our Leadership Lens masterclasses – a new series designed to explore the deeper dimensions of leadership and spark meaningful conversations that help leaders thrive in today’s complex world.
Created in response to growing demand for practical leadership development, Leadership Lens offers short, focused sessions that help leaders sharpen their thinking, connect with peers, and lead with confidence and clarity. Each session will explore a different leadership theme, from strategic decision-making and resilience, to influence and the human side of leading change. Sessions are designed to be practical, immersive, and immediately useful, helping people apply new thinking to real-world challenges.
So far, we’ve hosted two inspiring sessions:
Session 1: Reclaiming the Soul of Leadership
We explored what it truly means to lead with purpose and authenticity, and how reconnecting with the ‘soul’ of leadership can transform teams and organisations.
Session 2: Allyship in NHS Leadership – Equity, Belonging, Inclusion & Diversity (EBID),
Our speakers shared powerful insights and experiences that sparked thought-provoking conversations and left attendees with plenty of food for thought.
But don’t just take our word for it, one of our attendees said: “the invitation to sit and reflect quietly was so powerful, and not to converse, but to genuinely reflect was refreshing and welcomed.”
Thank you to everyone who joined us and contributed to these rich discussions. This is just the beginning – we have more sessions planned throughout 2026.
You can join our mailing list to be the first to hear when we launch: https://lnkd.in/e8WMZpPc
2025 saw us launch our 3-year strategy! Our ambition is clear: to become the improvement alliance of choice by 2027.
Our strategy focuses on co-producing impactful change for service users, colleagues, and communities through strategic alliances, bespoke solutions, and as a professional consultancy.
We guarantee results in three key areas:
Our values – Collaboration, Impact, Innovation, and Excellence – guide everything we do.
With a 15-year track record of delivering real impact, we’re ready to take the next step in shaping a future where improvement is embedded across health and care systems.
Earlier this year hosted our Transforming Tomorrow Through Leadership and Improvement Today event. Bringing a room full of knowledgeable, passionate, and influential people together created the perfect setting to introduce our refreshed direction – positioning Aqua as the improvement alliance of choice.
We opened the day with a warm welcome from Dr Susy Cook, who outlined our new strategy and set the tone for an inspiring and forward-thinking event.
Our keynote from Samantha Allen CMgr CCMI, was a powerful reminder of what leadership for improvement truly means. Her words resonated with the room: “If we only acknowledge the problems, we’re going to miss the point.”
We then heard from Ivan Hollingsworth, who shared the deeply personal story of his son’s life-saving surgery and the extraordinary team who supported his family. His message about culture in healthcare was profound: “What is the culture we want to achieve, and what do we need to do?”
A thoughtful and honest panel discussion followed, chaired by Sue Holden, exploring what it takes to cultivate an improvement mindset. Our panel shared candid reflections on how their experiences have shaped their leadership journeys.
We closed the day with Michael West CBE, who challenged us to think deeply about creating compassionate, collective, and inclusive cultures – a fitting end to a day focused on improvement, connection, and purpose.
Throughout the event, the room buzzed with engagement, openness, and shared learning. Hearing so many personal stories and insights reminded us why this work matters.
But don’t just take our word for it, here’s what one of our attendees had to say:
“In the midst of ongoing pressures, it was powerful to see so many people take the time to pause, listen, reflect, and think differently about what is possible. This was not just a moment to share ideas – it was a catalyst for future action. An alliance of people committed to improvement, grounded in the right values, and focused on creating the cultures needed to enable lasting change across the NHS.”
Thank you to everyone who joined us and contributed to such a memorable and energising day. Here’s to the next chapter of our journey!
We’re proud to be part of multiple frameworks that make it easier for healthcare organisations to access our expertise and services.
Frameworks provide a streamlined, compliant way for our customers to work with us – saving time, reducing procurement complexity, and ensuring quality standards.
We’re excited to share that Aqua has recently been appointed to the NHS Shared Business Services (SBS) Framework for Audit Services. This means NHS organisations can now access our audit and assurance services through a trusted, nationally recognised route.
What does this mean for our customers?
Being on frameworks like NHS SBS reflects our commitment to supporting healthcare providers with robust, evidence-based solutions that drive improvement and deliver better outcomes for patients.
Learn more about our NHS SBS appointment here.
As we close out 2025, we’re proud to celebrate the incredible partnerships we’ve built across the NHS and wider public sector. Together, we’ve tackled some of the most pressing challenges, delivering real, tangible improvements that make a difference to patient care and help shape the communities we serve.
To showcase the impact of this work, we’re re-sharing our Ambulance Handover Improvement case study – a powerful example of how collaboration can reduce delays, improve patient safety, and create lasting cultural change.
Here’s what one of our customers had to say about us:
“Aqua has been instrumental in supporting our network wide improvement work. Their expertise in quality improvement in a healthcare environment, combined with dedicated time and resources, has made a significant impact to the development of our project. Providing exceptional project management helped the teams stay on track despite busy clinical commitments. Aqua’s guidance encouraged us to actively engage and take ownership of the initiatives. Through insightful advice and a curious, yet supportive challenge, Aqua ensured we remained focused on our objectives. Their approach empowered our teams, making the improvement process manageable while supporting us to foster a culture of continuous learning and growth.”
A huge thank you to all our customers for your trust and commitment to improvement. We can’t wait to continue this work into 2026 and collaborate with many more new and existing organisations to drive positive change.
One of the most rewarding aspects of 2025 has been working alongside partners to deliver large-scale improvement through collaboratives. These programmes bring people together across organisations, creating space for shared learning, innovation, and practical action that drives real change.
A key highlight this year has been our work with NHS England North West on their improvement collaboratives. These initiatives have supported teams to tackle complex challenges, embed quality improvement approaches, and build a culture of continuous learning across the region.
You can read more about this work in our latest reflective blog: https://lnkd.in/eVRyZy7y
Collaboratives are a powerful way to connect expertise, share ideas, and accelerate improvement – and we’re excited to continue this work into 2026 with even more customers.
Throughout 2025, we’ve been working closely with our stakeholders to shape something truly transformative: a suite of improvement programmes designed to help health and care organisations create a culture of continuous improvement, build capability for improvement, and develop future improvement leaders.
Your feedback has been invaluable in shaping these programmes, ensuring it responds to the real challenges of productivity, flow, and quality across health and care.
These programmes provide a consistent, organisation-wide approach aligned with NHS IMPACT, strengthens Quality Management Systems maturity, and embeds measurable transformation.
What makes these programmes distinctive?
We’ve developed three programme levels that can be used individually or as a complete improvement journey:
These programmes embed our DRIVE continuous improvement approach, ensuring consistency through a single method.
We can’t wait to share more in early 2026 – this is your opportunity to transform care through improvement capability and empower your teams to deliver impactful change.
As we close out 2025, it’s the perfect time to reflect on some truly impactful work with The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust – an outstanding example of how continuous improvement and clinical innovation can save lives.
Together, The Dudley Group and Aqua’s Advancing Quality (AQ) programme have significantly improved care and outcomes for patients across six key clinical areas, including sepsis.
What We Achieved Together:
Tangible Improvements:
That’s a 16%+ absolute increase in patients receiving antibiotics on time – critical in reducing sepsis mortality.
How We Made It Happen:
Read the full story here.
Thank you to all the Dudley and Aqua teams for a relentless drive to deliver safer, more consistent care. This success embodies how a culture of continuous improvement, clinical leadership, and data-enabled collaboration can genuinely transform care.
Case Study: A Partnership for Safer Care: The Advancing Quality Alliance (Aqua) and Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust
Case Study: Working in Partnership – The Advancing Quality Alliance (Aqua) and The Society for Acute Medicine
Patient safety and the new NHS Quality Strategy: A blog from Aqua and Patient Safety Learning
Dr Simon Moralee joins the Advancing Quality Alliance
Looking Back at 2025: 12 Highlights Across 12 Days
Aqua appointed to NHS Shared Business Services Framework for Audit Services
