Clinical audit programme - Frequently asked questions

See below.

Q. What do you mean by a national clinical audit programme?
A. The Healthcare Commission is responsible for running the programme in England. The Welsh Assembly Government has asked the Healthcare Commission to run audit programmes in Wales.

Q. What about the resources required for delivering successful audit at trust and PCT level?
A. The Healthcare Commission  recognises the difficulties here. Resourcing the NHS is not a matter for the Healthcare Commission, but for the Government. Substantial monies are being invested in the NHS and monies are generally not ring fenced to empower local decision makers to meet local need. However, participating in national audit can help focus local resources.

Q. Why should an organisation participate in national and local audit?
A. The Healthcare Commission  is committed to improving patient care and clinical audit is a key element in that process. National audit provides valuable comparative information at national and local level. Organisations and clinicians can compare achievements with their peers and share their experience with one another.
Participation by local bodies in clinical audits and outcomes monitoring of relevance to their patients is an indication of good governance that will feed into the Annual Health Check. Participation by Trusts in relevant national audits is amongst the information used during the cross-checking process for 2005/06 NHS Core Standard C5d (“Healthcare organisations ensure that clinicians participate in regular clinical audit and reviews of clinical services”). Findings from the Programme are likely to be used to cross-check developmental standards from 2006/07.

Q. What will the Healthcare Commission do to maintain patient confidentiality?
  A. The Healthcare Commission  considers the patient perspective to be essential to national clinical audit, both in terms of ensuring access to high quality care and their rights to privacy. The Healthcare Commission  is actively engaging with all stakeholders to produce guidance for Caldicott guardians, which will respect the rights of patients and permit the assessment of delivery of care against defined standards. In the meantime, the Healthcare Commission is keen to ensure that those participating in the programme of national clinical audits are informing patients how their data may be used. The Healthcare Commission  has developed a draft code of practice on access to personal information. A public consultation on the Code in early 2004 is now open.

Code of practice on access to personal information

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