New help in clinical audits
A new report published by the Leicester primary care audit group is likely to prove a valuable tool for primary care trusts facing their CHI clinical governance reviews.
The report, Learning from clinical governance reviews, carried out by CHI, focuses on the clinical audit section of clinical governance reviews, and, according to Leicester PCAG manager Stephen Ashmore, if PCTs follow the recommendations, they are likely to achieve a grade two in this area. The report also offers a 10-point quick audit fix guide to help trusts avoid the lowest grade. To date, more than a quarter of PCTs reviewed by CHI have been awarded the lowest grade in the clinical audit section.
The report is the outcome of a detailed investigation into the CHI review process. It collates the results of all of the clinical audit gradings awarded to PCTs and identifies 11 key areas where CHI has frequently recommended trusts improve.
What we have done is look at all the clinical governance reviews that CHI has conducted and, specifically, at the action points that it recommended, Mr Ashmore said. In this way we were able to get a picture of common PCT weaknesses, as well as what CHI is looking for when it conducts a clinical governance review. There were 11 action points that kept coming up in review after review. Weve included these in the report so PCTs can use this as something of a checklist.
Mr Ashmore said the commission told nearly three- quarters of PCTs it reviewed that they needed to better disseminate audit activity findings and share best practice. And almost 70 per cent were told they needed to develop and implement a clinical audit strategy.
Along with the 10-point guide to drawing up a high quality audit programme, the report also contains examples of clinical audit strategies that had been deemed best practice by CHI.
CHI itself came under some criticism in the report, which noted that the clinical audit reviews tended to focus on the throughput of audit and not the actual quality of the audit activity taking place.
Report available by emailing [email protected]