Blog: HQIP’s role in delivering NHS priorities

2 Jul 2025

From Data to Action

How HQIP, Clinical Audits, and Registries Can Support National NHS Priorities for 2025/26

As the NHS shares its operational planning guidance for 2025/26 this week, it’s vital to understand the role that clinical audits and registries can play in supporting the delivery of the priorities it outlines. By providing high-quality data, they are an essential tool for improving patient care, reducing inequalities, and enhancing productivity. HQIP’s CEO, Chris Gush, explains how the national programmes commissioned by HQIP, on behalf of the NHS, are critical to delivering NHS 2025/26 priorities. HQIP manages several national clinical audits (NCAs), clinical outcome review programmes (CORPs), and hosts the National Joint Registry (NJR). These initiatives, delivered by our partner organisations, generate essential data covering a spectrum of clinical disciplines ranging from asthma to vascular care. With key insights and clear recommendations for improvement, they enable healthcare providers to evaluate care quality, support continuous improvement, and inform strategies to achieve national NHS objectives. Importantly, they have the potential to save and improve lives, at the same time as reducing the burden on resources. Find below just some examples of the many ways these programmes contribute to the NHS’s 2025/26 priorities and operational planning guidance, illustrating their vast potential to support improvement in healthcare.

  1. Reducing Time for Elective Care and Cancer Treatment Standards

National Priority:
  • 65% of patients to receive elective treatment within 18 weeks by March 2026.
  • Improve cancer waiting time standards: 75% compliance with the 62-day target and 80% with the 28-day Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS).
HQIP’s Role in Priority Delivery:
  • National Joint Registry (NJR): Tracks outcomes of hip, knee, shoulder, elbow, and ankle joint replacements, providing data on implant longevity, surgical performance, and patient outcomes. Insights can help reduce elective care delays by improving surgical pathway efficiency and resource allocation.
  • National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre (NATCAN): This ground-breaking centre, the first of its kind, consolidates ten cancer audits including breast, ovarian, pancreatic, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, prostate, oesophago-gastric, bowel, lung, and kidney cancer. These audits provide up-to-date essential data on diagnosis, treatment pathways, and outcomes, enabling faster and more effective care delivery.
These programmes guide local and national strategies to optimise referral management, streamline diagnostics, and improve patient choice within elective and cancer care pathways.

  1. Improving A&E and Ambulance Response Times

National Priority:
  • Improve A&E waiting times (78% of patients admitted, discharged, or transferred within 4 hours).
  • Reduce Category 2 ambulance response times to 30 minutes on average.
HQIP’s Role in Priority Delivery:
  • National Respiratory Audit Programme (NRAP): Provides key data on the management of acute exacerbations of asthma and COPD in emergency settings. This audit supports improvements in A&E care for respiratory patients by identifying gaps in treatment protocols and patient flow management.
  • Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP): Examines the quality of care delivered to stroke patients in the crucial hours following stroke onset and monitors long-term management and rehabilitation. It provides ambulance trusts with intelligence on response and conveyance times for stroke patients. The audit also supports quality improvement activities, helping patients to recover faster and with better results.
By identifying current best practice and areas for improvement in urgent and emergency care, these audits contribute to reducing handover delays, enhancing same-day emergency care, and improving operational efficiency.

  1. Enhancing Access to General Practice and Dental Care

National Priority:
  • Increase the number of urgent dental appointments and improve general practice access and patient experience.
HQIP’s Role in Priority Delivery:
  • National Diabetes Audit (NDA): Tracks the management of diabetes across primary and secondary care, identifying gaps in care and opportunities for better integration between general practice and specialist services.
  • National Audit of Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Primary Care (CVDPrevent): Supports improvements in the prevention and management of cardiovascular disease (CVD) by providing data on care delivery in primary care settings. This audit highlights opportunities for better integration of preventive measures, particularly for at-risk populations, to reduce long-term complications and hospital admissions.
These audits enable Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) to develop targeted action plans to address variations in care delivery and access, ultimately improving patient outcomes and experience.

  1. Improving Mental Health and Learning Disability Care

National Priority:
  • Reduce average length of stay for adult acute mental health inpatients and expand access to CYP mental health services.
HQIP’s Role in Priority Delivery:
  • National Clinical Audit of Psychosis (NCAP): Focuses on measuring the quality of care provided by Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) teams, ensuring prompt, evidence-based assessment and treatment for first-episode psychosis. The audit aims to improve service access, optimise care pathways, and reduce inpatient stays.
  • National Audit of Eating Disorders (NAED): Focuses on improving the quality of care for patients with eating disorders, particularly children and young people (CYP). This audit examines early intervention strategies, care pathways, and treatment outcomes, supporting better access to timely, evidence-based mental health services.
  • Mental Health Clinical Outcome Review Programme (NCISH): Examines incidents of suicide among mental health service users. By identifying risk factors and systemic issues, this programme helps improve patient safety, ensuring patients receive timely, high-quality interventions and support.
  • National Child Mortality Database (NCMD) – Suicide in Children and Young People: This report investigates the factors and characteristics associated with child and adolescent suicides. It provides critical recommendations for improving mental health support services, early intervention, and prevention strategies for vulnerable young individuals. The findings guide service providers and policymakers in reducing risks and enhancing support systems for children and young people.
These projects help identify systemic barriers to timely mental health care, supporting reforms to reduce unnecessary inpatient stays and improve service access for children and young people.

  1. Addressing Inequalities and Shifting Towards Prevention

National Priority:
  • Reduce health inequalities through the Core20PLUS5 approach and enhance prevention strategies for conditions such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
HQIP’s Role in Priority Delivery:
  • National Vascular Registry (NVR): Evaluates the care and outcomes for patients undergoing major vascular procedures such as aneurysm repair and lower limb revascularisation. The NVR identifies variations in access and outcomes, supporting improvements in preventive care and reducing inequalities in vascular health.
  • National Paediatric Diabetes Audit (NPDA): Maintains a focus on identifying and addressing variations in paediatric diabetes care processes, treatment, and outcomes by socio-demographic groups. The audit highlights health inequalities through detailed reporting, breaking down outcomes by ethnic category and deprivation quintile. This work is part of the NPDA’s 2022-2027 Quality Improvement Strategy, which earned the Health Inequalities Hero Award in recognition of its efforts to reduce disparities in diabetes care.
  • Maternal, Newborn and Infant Clinical Outcome Review Programme (MBRRACE-UK): Identifies factors contributing to maternal and infant mortality, providing targeted recommendations to reduce inequalities in perinatal and maternal outcomes.
  • National Audit of Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Primary Care (CVDPrevent): A national primary care audit that extracts routinely held GP data to support primary care in understanding how many people with cardiovascular disease (CVD), or conditions that lead to a higher risk of developing CVD, are potentially undiagnosed, undertreated, or overtreated. The audit prioritises working with system partners to drive CVD quality improvement at individual GP, Primary Care Network (PCN), and Integrated Care System (ICS) levels.
These projects support ICBs and providers in developing strategies to improve early intervention, disease management, and access to care in underserved communities. Blog – Yes we can: The importance of national clinical audit in addressing health inequalities. In this article, Professor Danny Keenan, Medical Director at HQIP, explains how clinical audits can support a better understanding of, and help to address, healthcare inequalities.

  1. Driving Digital Transformation

National Priority:
  • Shift from analogue to digital systems, with increased use of digital communications, electronic patient records (EPR), and integrated data platforms.
HQIP’s Role in Priority Delivery:
  • HQIP is actively collaborating with EPR providers, trust-based Business Intelligence Units (BIUs), and the clinical audit community to drive digital transformation. This involves integrating clinical audits and outcome review data into digital platforms to facilitate real-time access for clinicians and system leaders, enhancing data-driven decision-making and care improvement efforts.
  • National Joint Registry (NJR): Integrates with digital systems to provide up-to-date data on surgical outcomes, enhancing decision-making for elective care and resource planning.
These efforts support the adoption of digital tools that improve patient outcomes and operational efficiency, reducing administrative burden and enabling data-driven care.

  1. Reducing Costs, Improving Productivity, and Living Within Budget

National Priority:
  • Achieve a 1% reduction in the cost base and a 4% improvement in productivity, including a 30% reduction in agency expenditure.
HQIP’s Role in Priority Delivery:
  • Clinical audits help identify inefficiencies and areas for cost-saving, such as reducing unwarranted variation in clinical practice and optimising procurement processes.
  • The Falls and Fragility Fracture Audit Programme (FFFAP): Highlights preventive measures, such as improved fracture care and falls prevention strategies, which can reduce hospital admissions and associated costs.
By providing evidence on productivity and efficiency improvements, HQIP supports the NHS’s goal to live within budget while maintaining high-quality care.

  1. Ensuring Quality and Safety

National Priority:
  • Deliver key actions of the maternity and neonatal ‘Three Year Delivery Plan’ and maintain a strong focus on service quality and safety.
HQIP’s Role in Priority Delivery: These projects provide essential data to improve patient safety, reduce clinical risks, and ensure compliance with national standards for maternity and neonatal care. HQIP recognises that the path to reform, as outlined in the 2024 ‘Darzi Report,’ presents significant challenges. Achieving the NHS’s current priorities requires sustained effort and collaboration across the health and care system. However, by working together – using robust evidence to drive targeted improvements where they will have the greatest impact – we can share this responsibility and achieve meaningful progress. As demonstrated above, HQIP’s national clinical audits and outcome review programmes are instrumental to the delivery of the NHS’s 2025/26 priorities. By providing timely, comprehensive, and high-quality data on a national scale, these initiatives support Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), trusts, and providers in addressing key objectives. This includes improving patient care, reducing health inequalities, and driving efficiency and productivity. With a shared commitment to data-driven reform and continuous quality improvement, we can collectively deliver sustainable, high-quality healthcare that meets the evolving needs of patients and healthcare professionals alike.

Further information

Data, infographics and other outputs from HQIP-commissioned programmes: www.hqip.org.uk/resources/?fwp_resource_type=reports

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