New consortium to run NHS clinical audit programme
pharmafile | February 1, 2008 | News story | |Â Â Â
The Department of Health has reorganised the way audits of patient care are carried out, handing the running of its national programme to a new consortium.
Clinical audit, which aims to improve patient care through systematic review, has become increasingly important to clinicians since last year's white paper, Trust, Assurance and Safety.
This set out a series of reforms for the regulation of healthcare professionals, and made explicit the important role clinical audit plays in clinicians' revalidation and clinical appraisal.
It was also followed by a £3.2 million increase in the annual budget for national audit programmes.
The new group running these programmes is called the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership, and is made up of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the Royal College of Nursing and the Long Term Conditions Alliance, an umbrella body for national voluntary organisations in the UK.
The consortium takes over the running of the National Clinical Audit and Patient's Outcomes Programme (NCAPOP) from independent healthcare watchdog the Healthcare Commission.
NHS medical director professor Sir Bruce Keogh said: "The Healthcare Commission has played a major role in raising the standards and transparency of clinical audit. The question is 'whether administering clinical audit is an appropriate role for a regulator?"
"So I think the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership is an appropriate step forward. The consortium will understand both the clinical context and implications of the audits thereby maximising the opportunity for real improvement."
The aims of the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership include improving the availability of high quality audit data to patients, the public, commissioners and other stakeholders.
Janet Davies, executive director of the Royal College of Nursing, said: "This partnership will bring together patient and staff groups at every level of the NHS to engender debate and positive outcomes for patients, staff and the health service as a whole."
The NCAPOP has commissioned more than 20 audits so far, including The National Stroke Audit in which all hospitals with stroke services in England, Wales and Northern Ireland participate.
The audit is used to compare care against standards and guidance, such as the National Service Framework for Older People's standards for stroke services, and allows institutions to see how they compare against both the standards and other institutions.
At Southampton University NHS Trust and associated PCTs the stroke audit led to a number of improvements, including a Specialist Falls Clinic and funding for five additional rehab assistants to work on falls prevention.
