National Paediatric Diabetes Audit (NPDA)

National Clinical Audit

Delivered by:

Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH)

Website:

Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health

This programme assesses the quality of care provided to children and young people living with diabetes who attend paediatric diabetes services across England, Wales and Jersey. It collects standardised data on care processes, outcomes and experiences to provide a clear, comparable picture of performance across services.

The NPDA works in partnership with RCPCH &Us to meaningfully involve children, young people and families in shaping how audit information is communicated. Through a series of facilitated workshops, children and young people from England, Wales and Jersey have contributed directly to the development of youth-friendly audit resources. These workshops have led to the creation of accessible materials designed specifically for children and young people living with diabetes and their families. The resources have been made available publicly for paediatric diabetes teams to use in their own communications.

Projects like this are important because they help us feel less alone and show us that others have similar experiences.(Wales)” Young person with diabetes

Supporting improvement

The core purpose of the NPDA is to support quality improvement by providing clinical teams, commissioners and national bodies with robust evidence on what is working well and where care can be strengthened. By highlighting variation in care and outcomes and tracking this over time, the audit helps drive improvements in clinical practice, service design and health outcomes for children and young people with diabetes. Findings from the audit are used locally to inform quality improvement activity and nationally to support the development of standards, policy and workforce planning.

The NPDA supports quality improvement by providing timely, benchmarked data that enables paediatric diabetes teams to identify variation, set measurable improvement goals and monitor progress over time. Unit-level reports and quarterly dashboards are used to inform multidisciplinary team discussions, local audit cycles and service development planning. At a national level, NPDA findings highlight system-wide priorities and inform guidance and service standards.

In 2025, the NPDA commissioned Children’s North East to deliver Poverty Proofing © training to paediatric diabetes teams in England, Wales, and Jersey. This programme aimed to reduce health inequalities by improving access to diabetes treatments, reduce unconscious bias and stigma around poverty, and improve patient experience by removing barriers and creating inclusive poverty-informed environments. As of December 2025, over 700 staff have taken part, with 99% saying they are likely to make changes to their practice as a result.

Additional data sources

In addition to HQIP-published reports below, improvement resources, reports and dashboards are all available via the programme website.