Did you know that clinical audits were first pioneered by Florence Nightingale? See, audits can be interesting! Audits allow us to measure clinical care against standards so that we can improve and strive to provide the best possible patient care. As such, our trust couldn’t wait to be involved in the Memory Assessment Services (MAS) National Audit, commissioned by HQIP, for a second time. HQIP, the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership’s, primary aim is to support improved health outcomes, for everyone, through high-quality, evidence-informed, and patient-centred healthcare. We know that it’s so important to help people, who are experiencing memory symptoms (and their families and carers), to access investigations, treatment, and support. It’s therefore imperative to evaluate our practice, benchmark against national performance, share best practice and plan for improvements.
Grace, an Advanced Clinical Practitioner, involved in the data collection for the MAS audit shares her experiences.
“Personally, being involved in this National Audit has been really interesting. It has enabled me to reflect on and evaluate my own practice, as well as that of my team in comparison to national data. This is my first community position, having previously predominantly worked in inpatient services, so it has also been reassuring to benchmark my own practice against that of my colleagues as well as other Memory Assessment Services.
Following data collection for the audit, I had already changed a few things in my personal practice around how I conduct and document initial assessments, to ensure they now meet the standards and measured parameters within the MAS National Audit. Being a part of the data collection team has also given me a new appreciation for how (the boring) things such as, consistent documentation approaches across teams, supportive technology systems and templates can really aid (or hinder!) the data collection process”.
3 Tips for Data Collection:
To ensure accurate data collection and good consistency between different people in the team, develop a ‘strategy document’ that outlines how the data will be collected so that everyone does it the same way.
Collect data in shorter and more frequent episodes of time to prevent fatigue and increase efficiency and accuracy (rather than doing this for several hours in a row).
Keep notes of the observations you make, and ideas for improvement you have throughout the data collection period, so when the data collection is done, the service improvement can begin.
Following the data collection and analysis, it was time to review the findings. Initially our Portsmouth based memory service met with the clinical effectiveness team to discuss the findings and their practical relevance. Portsmouth performed extremely well in initial assessment waiting times, brain scans offered and completed, and documentation of falls history. Identified areas for improvement included physical health assessments, scan request times and post-diagnostic support. We discussed ideas on how to develop these areas and put actions in place to improve the patient care pathway… but we didn’t stop there.
“When people put their brains together, powerful things can happen”.
On 1st October 2024, the ‘Hampshire and Isle of Wight (HIOW) Healthcare’ Trust officially launched, the start of fusion and improved collaboration. From this new trust, Portsmouth, Isle of Wight, and Hampshire West memory services colleagues met to evaluate and compare our MAS practices. A successful session enabled boundless conversationwhich highlighted differences in assessment wait times, similarities in the limitations of physical health assessment documentation and a celebration of the IOW’s excellent post-diagnostic support. This platform enabled colleagues to share their best practice, resources, and successes, and provide suggestions for improvement with one another.
So, what’s next? This is an excellent example of how localities from across our trust have engaged with, responded to, and are benefitting from the audit process. But only the beginning of how together, as the HIOW Healthcare Trust, we can collaboratively share expertise and gold standard practice with each other to ensure we are an equitable service that embraces improvement and strives to deliver the very best possible care to the people who need us.