About us (continued)

HQIP works in England to commission national clinical audits and to promote local clinical audit, and in Wales to commission national clinical audits which cover Wales. HQIP currently has no remit in Scotland or Northern Ireland, although those who are working in clinical audit in these areas, or who are working in local clinical audit in Wales, may download any content from this site.

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 20 clinical audits that cover care provided to people with a wide range of medical, surgical and mental health conditions and will be extended to other areas of healthcare that are considered a priority by the National Clinical Audit Advisory Group (NCAAG) and the Department of Health.

HQIP also works towards the reinvigoration of clinical audit by:

• promoting and enabling participation in clinical audit and quality improvement initiatives by healthcare professionals of all disciplines and specialties, as well as by patients and service users
• creating national and local partnerships between clinicians and patients/service users to optimise the impact of clinical audit
• supporting local audit staff and creating seamless links between national and local audit
• fostering active dissemination and implementation of audit results within a broader quality agenda
• ensuring that evidence about participation in audit, and the results of audit, are used for secondary purposes. These include work-based learning and support of revalidation of healthcare professionals
• encouraging and enabling audit in areas of low activity
• developing and promoting links with audits outside of the NCAPOP framework
• including participation in audit as part of revalidation
• developing clinical audit as a profession marked by training, standards and a professional body
• ensuring audit is required and inspected by commissioners and regulators
• engaging all relevant stakeholders.

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