Posted on: 24 April 2026
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL) brought together the first five inpatient teams who completed the Trust’s new Achieving Clinical Excellence (ACE) accreditation for a feedback and celebration afternoon, marking a significant milestone in the Trust’s drive to raise and standardise the quality of inpatient care.
ACE is CNWL’s structured, evidence-based framework for recognising, measuring and improving the quality of inpatient care. It will set and rise clinical standards, gain real-time feedback, reduce variation in practice and standardise quality improvement. While providing a clear, fair and supportive way to measure quality, celebrating success while driving continuous improvement and keeping the focus on safe, effective, compassionate care for patients and supports staff to deliver their best.
The framework
The programme assesses wards across six domains that are critical to delivering safe, effective, person-centred care:
Leadership – vision, accountability, culture of openness.
Environment – safety, cleanliness, dignity, and therapeutic space.
Safety – risk management, safeguarding, infection prevention, safe staffing.
Patient and Carer Experience – compassion, inclusion, communication, co-design.
Efficiency – timely, well-organised care and effective use of resources.
Staff Wellbeing and Experience – supervision, development, workload, resilience.
Reflections and recognition
The celebration event was a chance for the first cohort to share their feedback and reflections on the process. While colleagues expressed initial disappointment at achieving bronze, the message from CNWL leadership was clear: this first step is a major accomplishment.
Chief Executive, Claire Murdoch said:
“Being the first cohort is a significant achievement. The ACE Accreditation is not easy, and it’s not meant to be. I am proud of all of you, and the work you do touches and changes people’s lives every day.”
The celebration was led by Chief Nurse, Amanda Pithouse, who’s background is in Acute Wards so understands the challenges this accreditation brings. Amanda made sure to emphasise how much of an achievement achieving bronze is:
“Achieving bronze is fantastic, it’s like being rated Good. Although I know you all strive for silver and gold. Being consistent and maintaining this is the biggest challenge, keep it up!”
Eastlake, Pine, Willow, Colne and Amazon colleagues shared practical learning with Amanda and the ACE Team. Helping them to shape and sharpen the programme for upcoming cohorts. From what worked, to what needs to be tweaked and how we keep supportive teams on the ground.
Eastlake's ward manager said:
“ACE encouraged us all to think outside the box, try new things and one of those was introducing a 7-day OT timetable which is amazing. We’re very proud. Patients said they felt safe, and staff too.
We collaborate – it’s not them and us but all of us together.”
It was a positive and uplifting event, bringing together a broad range of professionals united in their commitment to improving patient care. As the first cohort, the wards will get the chance to be reinspected in six months, giving them the opportunity to build on their achievements and continue to progress.
