A national clinical audit managed by the College has won a national award that recognises outstanding patient and public involvement.
The National Clinical Audit of Anxiety and Depression (NCAAD) was awarded the 2019 Richard Driscoll Memorial Award by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) for showing excellence in patient and public involvement in clinical audit.
HQIP Patient and Public Involvement Lead and award facilitator Kim Rezel said:
“We are delighted to have this vehicle to showcase the dedication and expertise of our national audit teams who provide meaningful opportunities for patients and the public to influence and impact their work.”
“The winning entry impressed us with their responsiveness and flexibility; they made changes to the involvement structure at the request of the service user and carer reference group and adopted a new co-produced reporting model to increase the accessibility of published reports for lay people.”
How NCAAD worked with service users
NCAAD recruited a service user and carer reference group (SUCRG) from the outset to ensure that people who have experience of using secondary care mental health services inform all aspects of the audit. Four service user representatives, a young person representative and a carer representative make up the group from across the UK.
Phil Baker, HQIP Trustee and a member of the judging panel, said:
“This is a profoundly important piece of work involving a patient group that often does not benefit from the contact and engagement it needs. The award entry demonstrated impact beyond the original scope of the project.”
About NCAAD
NCAAD is one of 40 national clinical audits and patient outcome reviews commissioned by Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) and funded by NHS England. It was set up in 2017 to measure and improve the quality of NHS-funded care and treatment of service users with a primary diagnosis of anxiety and/or depressive disorder within secondary care services.