News
Show your support for #CAAW
This week (13 to 17 June) is Clinical Audit Awareness Week – a time to promote and celebrate the benefits and impact of clinical audit and quality improvement work in healthcare. Show your support for the week at #CAAW.
To mark #CAAW, we caught up with Helen Way, our clinical effectiveness lead, to find out more about #CAAW and Helen herself.
What exactly is clinical audit?
Clinical audit is a quality improvement process that seeks to improve patient care and outcomes through systematic review of care against explicit criteria and the implementation of change
You’re new to this role Oxleas, where did you work before?
Before I joined the NHS, I worked as a legal secretary in London and then took a career change into retail management with ladies fashion retailer, Hobbs. I joined Medway Community Healthcare in 2009 in their infection control team where I started working with audits.
Why did you choose clinical audit?
Working with the infection control team on their audit programme ignited a passion for audits and quality improvement. I joined the quality team in 2010 as clinical quality co-ordinator, to co-ordinate and monitor the annual clinical audit programme, develop audit tools and support clinicians, design and deliver clinical audit training and to co-ordinate the implementation of NICE guidance.
Why is clinical audit important?
We have to audit to meet mandatory and statutory requirements as a trust. We audit because it has many benefits to us and our patients, such as promoting and enabling best practice, improving patient experience and outcomes, providing evidence that demonstrates where services are clinically and cost effective and provide opportunities for training and education
Where can people find out more?
To find out more about our clinical audit programme and training or to access templates, visit our clinical effectiveness intranet page
The photograph is me with my Bichon Frise, Bella, who loves the clinical audit training and tells me it’s coffee time at 10am every morning!
Media enquiries
The communications team provides a point of contact for journalists to respond to all media enquiries.
We are happy to help journalists represent the trust accurately, so please do get in touch to ensure your facts and information are up-to-date before publishing your story.
Our media team is responsible for:
- Responding to media queries
- Arranging interviews with our nationally and internationally renowned experts who can talk about some of the trust’s specialist topics
For all media enquiries Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, please email oxl-tr.communications@nhs.net where a member of the team will review and action your request.
If you have an urgent enquiry outside of office hours or at the weekend, please contact our director on call via the Bracton Centre switchboard on 01322 294300.
Filming and photography requests
We receive documentary, location and broadcast filming requests on a regular basis – we consider all proposals on an individual basis and will try to accommodate proposals where possible, if appropriate.
No photography or filming is permitted without prior arrangement and agreement. Our patients always come first and we have a duty to protect their safety and confidentiality. Anyone found filming or taking photographs on the trust premises without the permission of the trust’s communications team will be asked to leave by the security department and may face prosecution.
Unless agreed otherwise, film crews and photographers must be accompanied by a member of the Communications Team at all times.
Contact: oxl-tr.communications@nhs.net
