Quality Assurance for NHS Health Checks Sarah Stevens Public Health Registrar East of England QA Reference Centre

What is QA? Delivers safe and effective programmes; Monitors the delivery of national standards; Supports improvements in delivery by professionals and provider organisations and through liaison with commissioners; Reduces risks by ensuring that errors are dealt with competently and that lessons are learnt; Is a coherent programme of activities

But does it apply to NHSHC? This is not a “screening programme” The questions and tests are all very standard “we do them every day” Data collection to monitor the Programme is already planned. So do we need to bother with QA?

QA is not….. Programme monitoring – population level Does Health Checks deliver benefit to the NHS, at low risk and acceptable cost? This is a DH question QA is about safety, quality, equity – individual level Does an individual get safe, high quality, consistent management in this Unit? This is a SHA/PCT/Practice/GP question

Duty of Care NHS Health Checks involves inviting people who believe they are healthy for check. These individuals are now patients – there is a duty of care to ensure that: They are not lost from the system They are offered the appropriate treatment They are all offered the same standard Benefits or risks of any intervention appropriately monitored The outcome of the individual are assessed

Potential Risks: Lessons from elsewhere Potentially clinical, reputational and financial risks across the pathway: – Cohort identification and invitation – consistent and accurate – Receiving a complete health check – variance in risk assessment tool, diagnostic services and equipment – Communication of risk - inadequate advice – Variable degree of disease management in primary care –inadequate advice and/or inappropriate follow up care.

Current work underway Commissioning Guidance January contains a risk assessment tool for local use National Pilot – NHS Buckinghamshire/ NHS Birmingham/ NHS Bedfordshire - Aim to create, and test, a pragmatic, yet robust QA solution for NHS Health Checks

Your Thoughts QA section on the website ur_programme/quality_assurance/ ur_programme/quality_assurance/ Looking to find out what is taking place locally, so we can collectively understand what QA processes exist or contact us via the website