News
This section has the latest news from Healthcare Quality Quest. For further information please contact us.
Department of Health consultation on the future of clinical audit staff
The National Advisory Group on Clinical Audit and Enquiries (NAGCAE) has launched a consultation on the future of clinical audit staff. The consultation paper spells out concerns about how clinical audit staff currently function and a way forward that acknowledges the need to assess and improve the quality and safety of patient care at national and local levels. New Quality Departments in NHS Trusts are being proposed.
Anyone with an interest in the subject is invited to respond to the consultation paper.
Click here for the paper http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/2012/07/audit-staff
The deadline for response is Monday, 17 September 2012.
Now available, the Italian edition of Getting Clinical Audit Right to Benefit Patients by Nancy Dixon
The 2012 Italian National Clinical Audit Workshop took place at the University of Bologna on 8 June, with 138 clinicians attending.
On the occasion of the workshop, the Italian edition of Nancy Dixon's book, How to Conduct a Clinical Audit for the Benefit of Patients, was launched. The Italian version is based on the eighth English edition of 2012 and is edited by Professor Ulrich Wienand.
For more details, including how to order the book, click here.
New! Standards for a national clinical audit
HQQ is pleased to announce its release of Standards for a National Clinical Audit or Quality Improvement Study.
The Standards were developed last autumn in response to a request made to HQQ by Parkinson’s UK, the national charity for people with Parkinson’s disease, which operates the Parkinson’s UK national clinical audit.
Parkinson’s UK wished to have an independent expert evaluation of the Parkinson’s national clinical audit, which has been running since 2009. The purpose of the evaluation was to identify the strengths of the national audit as well as areas in which the design or conduct of the audit could be improved.
“When HQQ looked for tools or guidance to evaluate a national clinical audit or equivalent project in detail, we didn’t find anything published that would enable us to make a highly professional contribution to the Parkinson’s UK national clinical audit. So this was where our work had to start,” explained Nancy Dixon, who led this work for HQQ. The Standards are based on an extensive review of the international literature, HQQ’s substantial expertise in clinical audit and comments from consultees.
”In retrospect, it surprised us to realize that for nearly two decades in the UK, professional bodies and other organizations have been running national audits that are about determining if healthcare professionals are meeting standards. However, the professional bodies and organizations have not subjected their own work to standards for their conduct of the audits. Given the public resources involved in these activities, both at national and site levels, it seemed to us to be time to do something about it,” Nancy added.
HQQ has released the Standards so that they can be used by existing national clinical audits to consider how existing national clinical audits can be improved and by healthcare organizations that want to assess the quality of a national clinical audit before making a decision on participation in the audit.
HQQ warmly welcomes comments on the Standards. Click here to submit comments to HQQ on the Standards.
HQQ launches new Online Learning Package
HQQ is pleased to announce the launch of a new online Learning Package for 2011. Produced for the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP), the Transforming Clinical Audit Data into Quality Improvements online learning package teaches you how to use clinical audit data to make improvements that actually benefit patients or patient care.
Target audience
The package is intended for clinical, clinical audit and management staff, including senior and junior clinical staff, trust board clinicians, senior and service level managers, staff providing support for clinical audit, and any others interested in clinical audit.
Individual learners can access the package by clicking on http://www.hqip.org.uk/transforming-clinical-audit-data-into-quality-improvements/.
Content
The package consists of slide presentations with voice-overs. There is also a book, Transforming Clinical Audit Data into Quality Improvement, that includes a summary of the content and practical work on clinical audits that can be carried out by a learner. Print the book before going to any of the modules. Click here for the book
To use this package as part of a training programme in a healthcare organization
Healthcare Quality Quest Ltd owns the copyright and all intellectual property rights for this online package. If you would like to use the package as part of a training programme in any organisation, obtain a licence from Healthcare Quality Quest Ltd. The licence is free, but there is a nominal charge for the direct cost of supplying all the components of the package. For more information and a licence to use the package, email: Licence@hqq.co.uk.