Quality audits

The Trust has an active programme of clinical audit, which is the process by which our own quality of care is compared with exemplar standards. Clinical audit is undertaken as part of our Clinical Governance framework to help us ensure that the Newcastle Hospitals are a safe place in which to be cared for. It also means that the benefits of any developments, advances and innovations which are highlighted through audit can be made available to our patients.

We have a Clinical Effectiveness, Audit and Guidelines Committee in place which seeks annual clinical audit reports from each clinical service outlining activity in relation to both national and local priorities with a key emphasis on audit outcomes helping us to make changes to improve patient experience. Priority is given to the comparison of standards of care with the trust against external benchmarks, such as guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

We also take part in a range of nationally organised audits and collaborative investigations with key projects to compare the quality of care and procedures carried out in hospitals and informing local action to improve patient experience and outcomes.

These include the following:

Peri-and Neo-natal

• Perinatal mortality
• Neonatal intensive and special care

Children

• Paediatric pneumonia
• Paediatric asthma
• Pain management
• Childhood epilepsy
• Paediatric intensive care
• Paediatric cardiac surgery Diabetes (RCPH National Paediatric Diabetes Audit)

Acute care

• Emergency use of oxygen
• Adult community acquired pneumonia
• Non invasive ventilation -adults
• Pleural procedures
• Cardiac arrest
• Severe sepsis & septic shock
• Adult critical care
• Potential donor audit
• Seizure management

Long term conditions

• Diabetes
• Heavy menstrual bleeding
• Chronic pain
• Ulcerative colitis & Crohn's disease
• Parkinson's disease
• Adult asthma
• Bronchiectasis

Elective procedures

• Hip, knee and ankle replacements
• Elective surgery
• Intra-thoracic transplantation
• Liver transplantation
• Coronary angioplasty
• Peripheral vascular surgery
• Carotid interventions
• CABG and valvular surgery

Cardiovascular disease

• Acute Myocardial Infarction & other ACS
• Heart failure
• Acute stroke
• Cardiac arrhythmia

Renal disease

• Renal replacement therapy
• Renal transplantation

Cancer

• Lung cancer
• Bowel cancer
• Head & neck cancer
• Oesophago-gastric cancer

Trauma

• Hip fracture
• Severe trauma

Blood transfusion

• Bedside transfusion
• Medical use of blood

End of life

Care of dying in hospital

 

To find out more about these national audit go to Health Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) website at http://www.hqip.org.uk/.

Other national audits include:

National Confidential Enquiries into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD). To find out more visit http://www.ncepod.org.uk/.