PATHWAY TO EXCELLENCE®

The international accreditation programme recognises a healthcare organisation’s commitment to creating a positive practice environment that empowers and engages staff and improves nurse and midwifery retention. In 2024, Glenfield Hospital became the first UHL site to achieve Pathway to Excellence ® designation. In June 2025, Leicester General Hospital submitted its evidence for accreditation, positioning UHL as the first organisation in the United Kingdom to successfully designate two sites.

Accredited by the American Nurses Credentialing Centre (ANCC) the Pathway to Excellence® Programme is recognised by organisations globally for Nursing and Midwifery excellence.

A portrait image of Julie Hogg, Chief Nurse, University Hospitals Leicester NHS Trust

Pathway to Excellence®

We have decided to pursue Pathway to Excellence® accreditation because there is strong evidence base that demonstrates it will make UHL a better place to work and to receive care.

Achieving this accreditation will showcase that the organisation is doing everything possible to create a positive practice environment allowing us to recruit and retain the very best colleagues at UHL.

To achieve the accreditation, we have to provide evidence that we can meet the requirements under six key standards. The evidence includes a portfolio and validation of that evidence by colleagues across UHL via a survey.

The six standards to support Nursing and Midwifery excellence

  • Shared decision making – creating opportunities for direct care colleagues to collaborate, share innovations and ideas, and be
  • Leadership
  • Safety
  • Quality
  • Wellbeing
  • Professional development

Leaders within our teams have been appointed for each standard, they have responsibility for recognising the work that our colleagues are doing in these areas. There is so much brilliant work taking place across the full range of these standards every single day – what colleagues may just see as their day-to-day actions is actually very impressive and contributes massively to these standards and the success of our organisation.

We will engage with you all the way through our journey, communicating what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and the progress being made towards accreditation. The Pathway to Excellence® team will be visiting ward and departments so that they can meet lots of colleagues and understand and share their experiences.

I am very excited about the journey ahead and the difference we can make together to ensure UHL is a great place to work and to receive care. Thank you for everything you do every day to look after our​ patients and each other.

Julie Hogg
Chief Nurse

Download Pathway to Excellence® leaflet

Discover more about the Six Pathway to Excellence® Standards

Empowerment through having a voice.

Shared Decision Making (SDM) is a transformational organisational model that empowers all members of the healthcare workforce to have a voice in the change making process. Councils are made up of a mixture of staff from across an area, or department, and they are given dedicated time to work on projects from patient safety and experience, staff experience and the environment. They can then feedback their ideas and changes directly to the senior leadership team via the ‘Leadership Council’, that runs every six weeks.

“90% of decisions about patient care should be made at the point of care” – Porter – O’Grady, 2001

Visible Leadership and developing leaders of the future.

Leadership supports a positive practice environment by ensuring that leaders are accessible, visible and that they facilitate collaborative decision-making within a shared governance structure. The organisation promotes opportunities for leadership development, succession planning, and ongoing personal and professional development.

Our Chief Nurse Fellows initiative embodies this standard, allowing front line teams an opportunity to develop with coaching and support from the Chief Nurse, and senior nurses and midwives.

Prioritising patient and staff safety.

Pathway to Excellence® organisations protect the safety and well-being of nurses, midwives, staff, and patients through safety policies and processes. A safe environment includes measures to create a culture free of incivility, bullying, and violence.

The Falls Review in Learning is a prime example of an initiative which helps in the delivery of harm free care. By standardising practices and encouraging timely reviews of inpatient falls, PSIRF (Patient Safety Incident Framework) patient care and safety can be enhanced, and learning can be supported in a more timely manner.

Creating a culture of continuous improvement.

QuaIity initiatives in Pathway to Excellence® organisations are developed through inter-professional collaboration and benchmarking. The organisation-wide quality initiatives are evidence-based and focused on improving patient and population health outcomes.

Leicester Excellence Accreditation Framework (LEAF)is UHL’s trust-wide approach to driving continuous improvement in patient care. Developed with and for multi-professional teams, LEAF brings together real-time data, quality improvement principles, and shared governance to empower teams to lead meaningful change.

Building on UHL’s previous accreditation processes, LEAF enables teams to assess performance, lead improvement efforts, and celebrate success — all within a structured, evidence-based framework

Providing meaningful support to our staff is a key aim.

Staff well-being and resilience is a key component running through the Pathway to Excellence® programme. It is essential our staff are active in the selection, planning and evaluation of well-being initiatives, that provide staff with support for physical and compassion fatigue, a strong balance between work and personal life, and an organisation wide culture of appreciation, recognition and celebration.

We provide many initiatives to support your physical and mental wellbeing, from monthly Schwartz Rounds and Team Time Support to the UHL Fun Runners Club. Our initiatives come from your feedback in our annual survey, so make sure your have your say!

Ensuring staff are the best they can be.

Recognising the importance of staff induction, professional development and lifelong learning to enable the delivery of safe and effective patient care.

The UHL School of Nursing and Midwifery Practice co-ordinates and delivers a wide range of nursing and midwifery education, training and clinical practice development opportunities across the Trust, ensuring that your development is our priority and supporting our teams to be the best they can be.

Check out the UHL School of Nursing and Midwifery Prospectus that is developed by the UHL School of Nursing and Midwifery Practice, designed to aid staff when thinking about the next steps in their career development, providing a full list of programmes available to staff. To support future development and ideas for discussion at your next appraisal meeting.