RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Outliers from national audits: their analysis and use by the Care Quality Commission in quality assurance and regulation of healthcare services in England
JF Clinical Medicine
JO Clin Med
FD Royal College of Physicians
SP e511
OP e516
DO 10.7861/clinmed.2020-0695
VO 21
IS 5
A1 Helen Grote
A1 Keiko Toma
A1 Laura Crosby
A1 Catherine Robson
A1 Clare Palmer
A1 Claire Land
A1 Jessica Ball
A1 Edward Baker
YR 2021
UL http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/21/5/e511.abstract
AB The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. As part of the intelligence-driven approach to regulation, the CQC works closely with national clinical audit bodies to identify key metrics which reflect quality of care and track the performance of providers against these metrics. Where outliers on national audits are identified that may reflect risks to patients, the CQC encourages the hospital to identify any learning points and implement changes to improve patient care.In this article, we describe the role of national audit outcomes in the regulatory process and how providers can use national audits to inform both quality assurance and quality improvement processes, with two illustrative case studies. We discuss the ongoing challenges with using audit data in the regulatory process and how these could be addressed.