At midday today, a new national Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) audit programme for England and Wales was announced at the British Thoracic Society Winter meeting. The programme will be clinically led by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), the British Thoracic Society (BTS), the Primary Care Respiratory Society (PCRS-UK) and in partnership with the British Lung Foundation (BLF), and will commence in early 2013.
Respiratory disease is the third leading cause of death in England, with approximately 23,000 people dying from COPD each year.[1] Over six million people in England suffer with COPD or asthma and respiratory disease is one of the principal reasons for emergency admission to hospital.[2]
The new audit programme brings together primary care, secondary care, rehabilitation and patient experience, marking a ground breaking, partnership approach with multidisciplinary, collaborative working to drive improvements in COPD patient care. This new audit programme supports the Department of Health (DH) aim to improve the quality of services for people with COPD by measuring and reporting the delivery of care as defined by standards embedded in guidance.
The aims of this cross-cutting audit will be to map the patient journey, map the variation in patient care and to use the data collected extensively and innovatively in order to drive up standards of care.
The new national COPD audit programme comprises five key elements:
- Primary care audit – prospective, continuous extraction of audit data via remote access from
general practice computerised patient record systems. - Secondary care snapshot audits of admissions to hospital with COPD exacerbation and outcomes at 30 and 90 days
- Pulmonary rehabilitation snapshot audits of service delivery and quality
- Snapshot audits of the resources and organisation of COPD services in primary and secondary care
- One year development work to identify Patient Reported Experience Measures (PREMs) and test methodologies for integration to the COPD audit programme.
The Clinical Directors leading the audit programme called upon colleagues to prepare to participate. Preparation will involve nominating an individual to take overarching responsibility for coordinating participation, ensuring quality data is submitted, looking at data and driving improvement. It will also involve identifying who needs to be aware of and support participation locally, for example audit colleagues, accident & emergency staff, commissioners, medical directors, nurses, practice managers, physiotherapists, and other clinical teams such as acute medicine, geriatrics etc. It is also an opportunity to engage junior colleagues with audit and quality improvement.
The audit programme implementation will start in early 2013 and will run for 3 years with the possibility of extending it to 5 years. The audit programme is commissioned for England and Wales by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) on behalf of the DH and is part of the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme (NCAPOP).
For further information, please contact Hannah Bristow, Clinical Standards communications officer, on +44 (0)20 3075 1447 / 07584 303 784 or email Hannah.Bristow@rcplondon.ac.uk
[1] NHS Atlas of Variation in Healthcare for People with Respiratory Disease (September 2012)
[2] NHS Atlas of Variation in Healthcare for People with Respiratory Disease (September 2012)
- The national COPD audit programme Clinical directors’ team will comprise Dr Rupert Jones from the PRCS-UK, Dr Robert Stone and Dr Mick Steiner from the BTS, and is overseen by Professor Mike Roberts from the RCP.
- The partnership will be supported by an enthusiastic and experienced Steering Group, which comprises members from Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Respiratory Care (ACPRC), Association for Respiratory Technology and Physiology (UK) (ARTP), NHS Improvement–Lung, Picker Institute Europe, Primary Care Respiratory Society UK (PCRS-UK), Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), and Royal College of Nursing (RCN).
- The Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) is led by a consortium of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the Royal College of Nursing and National Voices. Its aim is to promote quality improvement, and in particular to increase the impact that clinical audit has on healthcare quality in England and Wales. HQIP hosts the contract to manage and develop the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme (NCAPOP). Their purpose is to engage clinicians across England and Wales in systematic evaluation of their clinical practice against standards and to support and encourage improvement in the quality of treatment and care. The programme comprises more than 30 clinical audits that cover care provided to people with a wide range of medical, surgical and mental health conditions. More information can be found at www.hqip.org.uk