Introduction: Real Improvement Means Following Through
Across the NHS, governance leaders are united in one belief: learning matters most when it leads to change.
And under the Care Quality Commission’s updated Single Assessment Framework, that belief is now a clear expectation. The CQC wants to see not just that we review incidents, but that we close the loop, by turning insights into action, and actions into measurable improvement.
From our work with NHS Trusts, care providers, and governance teams, we’ve seen what this looks like in practice and where the challenges are.
This blog shares what we’ve learned from those organisations. It offers a practical roadmap to help you:
Make learning loops visible and trackable
Align assurance with CQC’s new expectations
Build a governance culture where improvement is consistently evidenced
Coming up:
What Closed-Loop Learning Looks Like
Why Even Strong Governance Teams Sometimes Struggle
The 6-Stage Learning Loop in Practice
How MEG Supports Teams in Closing the Loop
Embedding the Loop: Tips from NHS Partners
Conclusion + Next Steps
What Closed-Loop Learning Looks Like
At its simplest, a learning loop is the process of turning a safety or quality issue into a verified improvement in practice.
The loop can include:
🚨 Incident or feedback → 📋 Action → 🎓 Training → 🔍 Audit → 📈 Outcome → ✅ Evidence of change
What progressive providers have shown us is that the loop isn’t about creating more paperwork. It’s about designing systems that make it easy to:
See where change is needed
Assign ownership
Track impact
And critically, show that improvement efforts are actually working.
Why Even Strong Governance Teams Sometimes Struggle
We’ve worked with teams who are deeply committed to improvement, but feel frustrated by the barriers in their way. Common themes include:
🔹 Data spread across systems
Incidents in Datix, audits in Excel, training on paper i.e. no single view.
🔹 Action plans that drift
Well-written action logs, but no way to track whether they were followed through.
🔹 Good intentions, missing evidence
Training is delivered, but no audit confirms whether practice changed.
These aren’t failures, they’re symptoms of governance systems that haven’t caught up with governance ambition.
The 6-Stage Learning Loop in Practice
Here’s the structure many of our NHS partners are using to close the loop more effectively:
1. 🚨 Trigger
Incident, complaint, audit failure, or staff concern
2. 📊 Analysis
PSIRF or thematic review to understand root causes
3. 📘 Action & Policy Review
Clear next steps, SOP updates, and named owners
4. 🧾 Credentialing / Training
Staff receive support and development, not just tasks
5. 🔍 Audit for Assurance
Check that changes are now part of everyday practice
6. 📈 Outcome Review & Loop Closure
Track the effect over time. Did things improve?
What we’ve learned: it’s not about complexity, it’s about clarity. When teams share a common loop (improvement) model, everyone knows what to do next.
How MEG Supports Teams in Closing the Loop
MEG’s tools were shaped by feedback from quality and governance teams who wanted to simplify and strengthen the way they work.
Here’s how providers are using MEG to support the loop:
🔗 End-to-End Integration
Connects incidents, actions, training, policies, and audits
📊 Loop Dashboards
See live data on loop status, overdue steps, and domain performance
📋 Action Ownership
Assign tasks, set deadlines, and track progress visibly
🧠 Evidence Capture
Auto-generate reports showing how learning led to measurable change
One Trust used MEG to reduce their average ‘loop’ closure time by over 40% with MEG’s Action Planning tool.
Another created domain dashboards that now support Board-level assurance.
These aren’t just software features. They’re workflows that work because teams helped design them.
MEG’s Action Planning Tool - Demonstrate Open, In-Progress and Closed Tasks
Embedding the Loop: Tips from NHS Partners
The teams we’ve learned the most from have a few habits in common:
1. They standardise, but stay flexible
They adopt a core loop structure but let services adapt language or steps to their context.
2. They track loops, not just logs
It’s not just about counting incidents, it’s about showing improvement journeys.
3. They bring loop data into committees
Dashboards are shared in governance meetings, so learning becomes part of everyday assurance.
Related Reading
🎯 Conclusion + Next Steps
Embedding closed-loop learning doesn’t mean doing more.
It means creating clarity, so your governance efforts lead to meaningful, measurable change.
Across the providers we work with, we’ve seen that once the loop is visible, it becomes doable and once it’s tracked, it becomes culture.
🔄 Curious how your current learning loops stack up?
Book a call with the MEG team to see how loops could support even stronger assurance.