The National Diabetes Audit (NDA) is the largest annual clinical audit in the world. It is funded by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) and delivered by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), in partnership with Diabetes UK and Diabetes Health Intelligence (part of the Yorkshire and Humber Public Health Observatory).
The NDA collects data from primary and secondary care about diabetes services and provides information on how diabetes services are performing against national guidelines. As well as collecting and analysing the data, the NDA promotes utilisation of the data to inform and drive service improvements for people with diabetes.
By 2014, the NDA will have expanded to include five distinct areas of diabetes care, treatment and outcomes:
- Core audit. Now in its ninth year, this is an annual audit of primary care and specialist diabetes services, covering care processes, treatment targets and complications.
- Inpatient audit. This is an annual audit of every hospital covering inpatient care of people with diabetes, completed from case records and ward charts.
- Patient experience survey (commencing 2013). This will be an annual survey of patient experiences of primary and specialist services.
- Pregnancy services for women with diabetes (commencing 2013). This will be an annual audit of pregnancy care services for women with pre-gestational diabetes.
- Footcare services for people with diabetes (commencing 2014). This will be an annual audit specialist footcare services for people with diabetes.
NHS Diabetes has funded and piloted the patient experience survey and the pregnancy and footcare audits. Further information about the pilots can be found on the NHS Diabetes website.
In 2011, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) were awarded funding from HQIP to manage the paediatric component of the NDA. For more information, please go the RCPCH website.
If you would like more information about the NDA or to be kept informed of ongoing developments, email laura.fargher@diabetes.org.uk.