Website of the Department of Health

The Pathology Action Learning Programme  

Action learning means gaining useful experience from facing challenging issues, and taking steps to overcome them. It has proved its value as a way for staff to achieve sustainable change and improvement in NHS pathology services.

In the most recent phase of the Pathology Action Learning Programme, DH supported some 35 projects around the country to improve their local services using an action learning approach. The topics they tackled included phlebotomy, transport, point of care testing, communications and demand management – issues which will strike a chord with many other services. The report of their work, Acting for change: transforming pathology services through action learning, makes available both their achievements and their methodology, and also includes an introduction to action learning.

This work built on the success of an earlier phase of the programme. In 2005/6, DH funded six action learning sets to address topics seen as central to modernising pathology services. The lessons learned from those projects is published in Modernising from within: action learning solutions for pathology.

A resource pack on action learning is also available: Action learning - transforming renal and pathology services.

• Acting for change: transforming pathology services through action learning
• Modernising from within: action learning solutions for pathology
• Action Learning: Transforming renal and pathology services