Clinical Effectiveness
Supporting Improvement Through Evidence and Action
We support clinicians and colleagues in designing and delivering projects that measure effectiveness, identify learning and plan improvements for the care we provide. We also provide support with measurement design, data analysis, action planning, reporting and shared learning.
Listening, Learning, and Improving Together
It is important to continuously monitor effectiveness of services both to assure ourselves they are operating well and meeting the needs of our patients, and to identify areas that we can improve. There are lots of indicators of effectiveness - these include:
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Findings from service specific, trust wide or national clinical audits against standards from policies or national guidance such as NICE
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Findings from national confidential inquiries
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Service Evaluations which can include
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Experience and preference feedback from staff, patients and families; and feedback from other organisations we work alongside
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Equality and Diversity Indicators - are people easily able to access and utilise services equally?
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Quality indicators (such as response to incidents, patient safety, information provision and documentation accuracy)
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Clinician and patient reported outcome measures
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Understanding when interventions are most effective to whom, when and how
At the Academy, we work with the teams that measure these. We specialise particularly in clinical audits and service evaluations, working alongside services to build Audit, Evaluation and Improvement Plans, and providing training in relevant tools.
Examples of the
methods we use
A Clinical Audit is a quality improvement process used in healthcare to systematically review and improve patient care. It involves comparing current practice against established standards or guidelines, identifying areas where care could be improved, and implementing changes to enhance outcomes.
Service evaluations are a type of project used to assess how effectively a service is working as well as gathering ideas for future improvements. Unlike clinical research, the purpose of a service evaluation is not to test a new unknown treatment but to understand, describe, and improve existing treatments and services. It is about learning and understanding the impact of work that we do.
More information
NICE
Within our team, we monitor and disseminate updates to guidelines and standards produced by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence. Where relevant, services are asked to conduct baseline assessments, audits and evaluations to measure and plan for compliance with these documents.
Training
Introductory audit and evaluation training is available for teams on request. A more interactive workshop on audit and evaluation is available where teams and individuals can develop their plans and ideas together. An online guide to conducting clinical audit or an evaluation is also available.
Supporting staff
Each year, an audit plan is produced and updated for each service line. These are available on the Trust's intranet pages. Throughout the year, support is available to identify topics for audits and evaluations and the most suitable methods to use. If you would like to undertake a project, please:
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See if there is an audit on your local plan that you would like to support
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Contact the Academy Audit and Evaluation team
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Register your project using the form available on our intranet webpage
Supporting patients and the public
We welcome ideas from those that use our services for improvement, evaluation or audit, and can support anyone that would like to either be part of a project or even run one themselves. If you would like to know more or already have an idea, please contact us.