About us

The Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) was established in April 2008 to promote quality in healthcare, and in particular to increase the impact that clinical audit has on healthcare quality in England and Wales. It is led by a consortium of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the Royal College of Nursing and National Voices (formerly the Long-term Conditions Alliance).

HQIP sees clinical audit as one essential tool in a much broader range of activity to improve quality in healthcare. We believe that clinical audit is a quality improvement methodology to be used alongside a range of other techniques under the broader Quality Improvement banner. HQIP will promote any improvement methodology that has proven effectiveness and appropriateness.

The 2007 White Paper ‘Trust, Assurance and Safety' called for the revitalisation of clinical audit in order to deliver its full potential. The subsequent strategy embodied in the Next Stage Review, ‘High Quality Care For All', in 2008, stressed more broadly that quality and quality improvement, including clinical audit, was the centre of improving the NHS, and launched a stream of activity to drive quality, including work to improve clinical audit.

HQIP believe that building both national and local level partnerships between clinicians, clinical teams, managers and patients is at the heart of this. Supporting local staff, fostering active dissemination of information and implementing quality improvement initiatives is key – in this way we will ensure quality measurement is the engine which drives improvement.

The HQIP Annual Review includes a brief outline of the work achieved and the future aims of HQIP.

HQIP Annual Review 2010-11 >>

HQIP Annual Review 2009-10 >>

Our definition of clinical audit

Throughout this site you will see that HQIP adheres to the definition of clinical audit given in ‘Principles of Best Practice' - the definitive guide to clinical audit first published in 2002 and still available on this site. Whilst we are currently revising that book, the definition still stands. HQIP firmly believes that clinical audit is part of quality improvement. The audit cycle is about measuring, acting on changes, and measuring again. Making and assessing improvements is fully part of that cycle. People work in clinical audit because this definition is at the core of what they do and what they believe. Through audit we make care better.

Wide consultation with the field, both nationally and locally, in defining what are the characteristics of high quality audit (shortly to be published here), has shown that nearly everyone active in audit accepts and supports this definition, and acting on change will be a key part of the best practice indicators that this document, when complete, will recommend.

More About us >>