Quality

Quality Improvement Programme

Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust sees clinical audit and other quality improvement initiatives as a cornerstone of its arrangements for developing and maintaining high quality patient-centred services. When carried out in accordance with best practice standards, clinical audit can lead to improvements in the quality of care and patient outcomes, as well as providing assurance of compliance with clinical standards.

Each year, Oxleas agrees an annual programme of quality improvement and clinical audit activity that is implemented across the financial year. This will be made up of a compilation of projects that meet's the Trust corporate requirements for assurance which include the following key areas:

National Audits/HQIP/Quality Accounts
Trustwide Priorities e.g. care planning, NICE guidance implementation, areas of concern linked to serious incidents, complaints, CQC assurance, Safeguarding etc.
NHSLA Priorities
Identified directorate priorities that have been ratified for a Trustwide approach
CQUINs/Commissioner priorities

The ratification and implementation of the annual programme of quality & clinical audit activity is overseen by the Medical Director and the Trust Clinical Effectiveness Group (CEG). The CEG is also responsible for reviewing the findings and agreed actions resulting from all trust wide clinical audits.

National Audit of Schizophrenia

In 2013 Oxleas participated in the second round of the National Audit of Schizophrenia. This is a national audit comparing practice against the NICE guideline for Schizophrenia (CG82, 2009) and examines care in the following areas:

Service users experiences of care, treatment and outcomes
Carer satisfaction
Information and decision making around medication
Prescribing of antipsychotics
Access to psychological therapies
Monitoring and interventions for physical health problems
Care planning and crisis planning.

Oxleas audited practice for 100 random cases. In addition 56 service users and 13 carers completed a postal survey about Oxleas care, treatment and support.

The results were published in October 2014 and were reviewed by the Trust CEG in addition to other local and specialist groups. Oxleas has developed an action plan to improve the quality of care we provide the services, carers and families, which can be viewed below in related information.