2007/2008 Audit of NICE guidelines for schizophrenia (2002)
In spring 2008 the Healthcare Commission ran an audit relating to the NICE guideline for schizophrenia (2002) for the second time. The first audit was contributed to the joint review of community mental health services for 2005/06.
The 2007/08 audit applied to providers of specialist adult community mental health services (including PCTs that also provide adult community mental health services). The information that was collected is being used to inform the following areas of our work:
- 2007/2008 Annual Health Check new national targets for mental health trusts, providing data for the ‘Schizophrenia: improvement towards compliance with NICE guidelines’ indicator, supporting the national target to reduce mortality rates from suicide by 2010
- Following-up the 2005/2006 Joint Review of Community Mental Health Services
The second audit will again help local monitoring and national benchmarking of the implementation of the guideline where data is not currently available through existing national collections. Improvement in compliance with this guideline will lead to a range of cross-cutting benefits for service users:
- better care planning
- improved access to evidence based interventions
- reduction in the risks associated with this condition
- an enhanced prospect of recovery
Arrangements for the 2007/2008 audit
The Healthcare Commission provided an updated audit questionnaire that key worker and clinical staff in mental health health providers were asked to complete on each of the care records of a randomly selected group of service users. The questionnaire looked at care provided in the year to 31st March 2008, and covered the following themes:
- access to psychological therapies (family intervention and cognitive behavioral therapy)
- medicine management
- recording of advance directives
- occupational and vocational assessments
- physical health reviews
- provision of relevant information.
The data collection period closed on Tuesday 20th May 2008 at 5pm. Sixty-eight NHS provider trusts submitted approximately 6,800 completed questionnaires to the Healthcare Commission.
Download pdf version of the2007/8 Schizophrenia questionnaire (pdf 99kb) (opens new window)
Download guidance notes for completing the questionnaire (pdf 75kb) (opens new window)
Download ‘Guidance for the administration of the audit’ (pdf 145kb) (opens new window)
The questionnaire has been developed in consultation with The Information Centre for Health and Social Care who consider the data collection to be useful and reasonable.
Next Steps
The data that will be used for the new national target indicator for mental health trusts (‘Schizophrenia: improvement towards compliance with NICE guidelines’), has been available for ratification by the trusts involved at the end of June 2008. The final target construction and scores for this indicator will be published in the autumn of 2008.
The forthcoming follow-up to the 2005/06 joint review of community mental health services will include a number of indicators derived from the 2007/08 audit. It is anticipated that all trusts involved will be provided in late 2008 with a data report showing progress since the original review. Further details of the review follow-up will be published here in the future.
Further information
If you require any further information about this audit please e-mail: mentalhealthimprovementreview@healthcarecommission.org.uk
If you have a query about the national target indicator please email: performance.indicators@healthcarecommission.org.uk
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