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The National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme

  • Last modified date:
    18 July 2008

National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme (NCAPOP) was hosted by the Healthcare Commission. A procurement exercise has been underway during 2007-8 to identify a new host for an expanded programme. The new host is confirmed as a consortium comprised of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the Royal College of Nursing and the Long Term Conditions Alliance, which will be known as the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP). The new contract took effect from 1 April 2008.

This programme has been expanded with some additional responsibilities. The NCAPOP commissioned national audits across a range of specialties, and the programme as a whole included over 20 active audits.  The expanded programme will comprise:

  • Commissioning national audits - prioritising topics on the basis of advice from the NCAAG.  The audit programme will be expanded to incorporate two national audits that currently sit outside the programme (the National Joint Registry and the Paediatric Intensive Care audit), and it is expected that further new audits will be developed.
  • Stakeholder engagement – consultation with stakeholders, including clinicians, professional organisations, users of audit and others will be an essential part of reinvigorating audit, and building consensus about how to develop audit in the future.  This will be key to forging a productive national clinical audit programme, and linking effectively with local audit.  The NCAPOP will establish a wide and inclusive stakeholder forum as one means of enabling discussion and debate.
  • Support to clinical audit – the NCAPOP will have new responsibilities to develop materials and resources to support practitioners carrying out both local and national audit.  These might include training materials and guidance, and a library of validated audits that practitioners can download for use locally.

The NCAPOP will operate under the guidance of the National Clinical Audit Advisory Group, and will be funded by the Department of Health.

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