92 Regent Road
Leicester
LE1 7PE
Tel: 0116 295 1482
Fax: 0116 295 1481
[email protected]
Previous Diabetes Audit
The multi-practice audit of diabetes care is possibly the largest multi-practice audit ever carried out in British general practice. 91 Leicestershire practices (out of a total of approximately 155), have participated by submitting at least one data collection. To date (November 1999), 85 practices have submitted a second data data collection and have completed the audit cycle.
Of the 91 participating practices, 47 joined the project in October 1994. A further 38 practices were recruited by the audit facilitator between November 1995 and December 1996.
Although the multi-practice project is now complete, the audit protocol and full PCAG support (including data analysis and PGEA) is still available. Practices which participated in the multi-practice audit are encouraged to monitor their performance on an on going basis by submitting further data collections. Practices undertaking the audit for the first time are also supported. Practices should, however, be aware that a considerable amount of new evidence on diabetes care has emerged since the protocol was first developed. Participants may wish to refer to recent evidence-based guidelines such as those published by Leicestershire Health (Leicestershire Health Authority. Leicestershire evidence-based guidelines for the care of patients with diabetes, 1998).
The Audit Protocol
The protocol was based on the 'Monitoring Diabetes' protocol developed by the Eli Lilly National Clinical Audit Centre (Baker R, Khunti K, Lakhani M. Monitoring Diabetes. Leicester: Eli Lilly National Clinical Audit Centre, 1993).
The Criteria
| 1 |
Patients who have been diagnosed as diabetic have been recorded in the practice diabetic register. |
| 2 |
The diagnosis of diabetes is correct (ie a patient labelled as being diabetic must have been shown to have diabetes). |
| 3 |
The glycated haemoglobin (or fructosamine if this is the only test available) has been checked at least annually and the |
| 4 |
The records show that at least annually there has been an assessment of symptoms including hypoglycaemic attacks and |
| 5 |
The records show that at least annually the feet have been examined. |
| 6 |
The records show that at least annually the patient's urine has been checked for albumin to detect early evidence of nepropathy |
| 7 |
The records show that at least annually the fundi have been examined for retinopathy through dilated pupils. |
| 8 |
The records show that at least annually there has been an assessment of smoking habit. |
| 9 |
The records show that at least annually the blood pressure has been checked and is within normal limits. |
Results of the multi-practice audit
Aggregated results from the multi-practice audit show that participating practices demonstrated an overall improvement in the care of diabetics, as assessed against the audit criteria.
Data from the multi-practice audit was last aggregated in March 1999. For technical reasons, data from three practices which submitted computerised data has been excluded from the figures below.
Data for the 1st phase (1st data collections) - aggregated from 88 practices (8295 diabetic patients).
Data for the 2nd phase (2nd data collections) - aggregated from 76 practices (7285 diabetic patients).