The National COPD Audit - 2008

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In case you haven’t heard, the next national COPD Audit is due to begin this month. This project is being carried out under the auspices of the National COPD Reources and Outcomes Project (NCROP).

It is a very ambitious project and we’d really appreciate the BGS members’ support!

The purposes of this National Audit are:

• to assess the process of care, outcomes, and resources available for the treatment of patients with acute COPD exacerbations requiring hospital admission in the UK in 2008
• to compare results with the 2003 audit with nationally agreed standards, thereby highlighting areas of improvement and areas requiring further attention
• to assess the effect of the NCROP peer review process on achieving change within COPD care

You can read more about the NCROP at on the RCP website.

What’s happening? (Method)
The audit will mirror the methods used for the National COPD Audit 2003, but has increased in breadth this time to reflect changing patterns of COPD care.

Acute hospital units will be asked to complete a one-off resources and process of care survey, and there will also be a clinical case note audit of up to 60 consecutive admissions of patients with an exacerbation of COPD. These data will be submitted to the Royal College of Physicians London (RCP) via a web-based data collection tool.

For the first time, there are two additional paper-based surveys that peripherally affect acute units. Firstly there’s a survey to be sent to General Practices to identify factors in pre-admission community care that may influence admission and secondly, a sample of patients included in the study will be asked to complete a short questionnaire to help us better understand the patient perspective of an exacerbation.

We are also asking Primary Care Organisations in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to complete a survey about the organisation of COPD care in their area.

Sharing results
As in 2003, a National COPD Audit report will be published and widely circulated. In addition, each participating unit will receive an individualised report, presented alongside the aggregated national results in order that teams can examine their performance.

Please help!
Remember the National COPD Audit starts in March 2008. Contact your respiratory or clinical audit colleagues, or indeed the project team at the RCP if you want to know if your unit has registered to participate. Contact us for more information.

Please offer your support / assistance to colleagues – perhaps you could help identify patients that need to be entered to the audit, or offer to enter data on a specific area of practice e.g. palliative care, or manage the primary care element of the audit.

We will be working with Primary Care Organisations (PCO) for the first time. If you have a relationship with someone in your local PCO who is involved with COPD services, perhaps a commissioner, service development lead, public health specialist, please ask if they are participating and if not, encourage them to do so.

Thank you very much for your support

Rhona Buckingham, NCROP Project Manager
Phyo Myint, Steering Group Member, NCROP

BGS Newsletter, March 2008
Issue 15 ISSN 1748-6343 15