Page 26 - World of Irish Nursing April 2018

44 QUALITY & SAFETY

Ouality Maureen Flynn
A column by

& Safety

Introducing the National Office of Clinical Audit

The National Office of Clinical Audit process that aims to improve patient care from nursing and midwifery, led by a desire
(NOCA) was established in 2012 to create and outcomes by systematic, structured to provide evidence for improvement in
sustainable national clinical audit pro- review and evaluation of clinical care patient care and outcomes.
grammes. It is funded by the HSE Quality against explicit clinical standards on a Benefits
Improvement Division and supported by national basis’. • Measurement of practice and identi-
the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Contribution from nurses and midwives fication of potential opportunities for
NOCA functions through an executive Nurses and midwives make a considera- improvement at local and national level
team which provides managerial and oper- ble contribution to National Clinical Audits • Benchmarking clinical practice against
ational support to deliver the objectives of (NCA), working both at hospital level and participating hospitals and also interna-
the NOCA Governance Board. Each audit nationally to make local improvements, tionally (IHFD, MTA, ICU Audit)
has a multidisciplinary governance group contributing to the governance of NCA. • Provision of information for health service
including clinicians, managers and patient The NOCA executive team (pictured planning for policy makers as well as local
representatives. below) includes, Louise Brent, national service managers coming from an evi-
NOCA supports hospitals to learn from Major Trauma Audit and Irish Hip Frac- dence-based methodology
their audits and strongly encourages ture Database (IHFD) audit co-ordinator; • Promotion of transparency and openness
nurses and midwives to use the findings Debbie McDaniel, Irish National Ortho- as all NOCA audits report findings publicly,
of the audits within their practice. This paedic Register (INOR) audit co-ordinator; up to and including hospital level findings.
column introduces the roles nurses and Suzanne Rowley, INOR audit co-ordinator; Opportunities
midwives play within the portfolio of eight Mary Baggot, National ICU audit co-or- You can get involved with NOCA audits
national audits in development or imple- dinator; Fionnuala Treanor, assistant ICU through your local audit co-ordinator or
mentation phase. audit co-ordinator; Edel Manning, National hospital quality and safety committees,
What is clinical audit? Perinatal Epidemiology Centre audit co-or- consider applications for use of audit
The Commission on Patient Safety and dinator; Deirdre Burke, National Audit data from NOCA for research or quality
Quality Assurance defined clinical audit of Hospital Mortality co-ordinator; and improvement projects.
as, ‘a clinically led, quality improvement Marina Cronin, head of quality and devel- If you would like more information
process that seeks to improve patient care opment who supports the team through about the audits or want to get involved,
and outcomes through systematic review the provision of monthly webinars, audit please email: auditinfo@noca.ie, tweet us:
of care against explicit criteria and to act handbooks and workshops to ensure data @noca_irl or visit: www.noca.ie
to improve care when standards are not quality is of the highest standard and can This column is the first in a series of
met’. Also described by the National Clin- be utilised easily in the hospitals. six about NOCA audits, our next column
ical Effectiveness Committee as, ‘a cyclical A number of the NOCA team have come introduces NOCAs IHFD.
Maureen Flynn is the director of nursing ONMSD, lead
governance and staff engagement for quality HSE Quality
Improvement Division
Acknowledgements
A particular thanks to Louise Brent for providing
information and assistance in preparing the column
and the NOCA team, Collette Tully, executive director;
Aisling Connolly, communications and events lead;
Kenny Franks, operations manager; Fionnola Kelly,
Louise Brent Debbie McDaniel Suzanne Rowley Mary Baggot biostatisician; Brid Moran, information manager.
We wish to also thank all the clinical leads and audit
co-ordinators who work with NOCA
References
• Department of Health and Children (2008), Building
a culture of patient safety: report of the commission
on patient safety and quality assurance. Dublin: The
Stationary Office.
WIN Vol 26 No 3 April 2018 Fionnuala Treanor Edel Manning Deirdre Burke Marina Cronin audit. Dublin: Department of Health
• National Clinical Effectiveness Committee (2015),
Prioritisation and quality assurance for national clinical

About the HSE Quality Improvement Division (QID): the division led by Dr Philip Crowley was established
in January 2015. The mission of the QID team is to provide leadership by working with patients, families
educating, partnering and demonstrating quality improvement. Our vision is working in partnership to
create safe quality care.
Quality Improvement Division and all who work in the health system to innovate and improve quality and safety of care by championing,