Auditing your practice
Audit
Audit is an essential tool by which to measure and, thereby, raise standards and reduce variability in the delivery of health care services. In 2008, NHS Plus funded the first ever national audits of occupational health practices in England on the Management of Back Pain and Depression Screening and Management of Staff on Long Term Sickness Absence.
A second round of the Management of Back Pain audit is currently underway. The second round of the Depression Screening and Management of Staff on Long Term Sickness Absence was published in 2011.
Dr Sian Williams, who has run the programme of national audit on behalf of NHS occupational health, explains how you can use audit to drive up the standards of your service - go to video
Management of Back Pain
The Health at Work network is pleased to announce that it will be funding round two of the national audit of back pain management to be conducted by the Health and Work Development Unit of the Royal College of Physicians. The audit is now open for registration at https://audits.rcplondon.ac.uk.
The audit is open to all NHS Trusts in England. Results will be compared with those from 2008 and will provide a comparison to the national benchmark. Data collection will take place between August and the end of November 2011. Eligible cases may be selected from January 2011.
This year’s audit will include a survey of patient satisfaction and referring managers’ satisfaction with the OH service and will benchmark this against the national average. An important change to the inclusion criteria has been made since the first round in that cases seen by a physiotherapist or occupational therapist may be included.
The inclusion criteria for case notes to be submitted into the audit are:
- The first consultation with an NHS staff member (occupational health nurse, doctor, occupational therapist or physiotherapist) for a new episode of back pain (a new episode is one that has been separated from a previous episode by at least 4 weeks) between January 1st 2011 and the end of data collection.
Volunteers for piloting the audit tool are being sought by the HDWU. Anyone interested should contact them via hwdu@rcplondon.ac.uk.
Copies of the reports from the first round of audit are avaiable below.
Back pain management: full report
Back pain management: executive summary
Depression Screening and Management of Staff on Long Term Sickness Absence
NHS Plus commissioned a second round of this audit in 2010 and the results were published in 2011. A copy of all the audit results are available below.
Depression screening and management of staff on long-term sickness absence - full report - round 2
Depression screening and management of staff on long-term sickness absence: full report
Depression screening and management of staff on long-term sickness absence: executive summary
Over 70% of NHS Trusts participated in the first round of audits. NHS Plus subsequently hosted a national conference to examine attitudes and opinions and embed change. Using an anonymous voting mechanism, 79% of attendees reported they had changed their practice as a result of the information provided by the audits. A report from the conference is available here.
