#CAAW blog – Diary of an audit lead day 3

Published: 13 Nov 2015

In the third of his Clinical Audit Awareness Week blogs, Michael Spry (Countess of Chester Hospital FT audit lead, Mersey Clinical Audit Network chair and NQICAN member) gives his views on sharing good practice

This is a late entry for Wednesday’s blog after a long day. Today saw a colleague and I bleary eyed on an early train to Manchester, with an interesting day ahead.

We were signed up to go to the HAELO Festival of Learning at Salford Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. During the day, Salford were showing us their Nursing Assessment and Accreditation System, a tool which enables them to measure the quality of care delivered to patients. If their wards score consistently highly, they can then become a ‘SCAPE’ (Safe, Clean and Personal) ward, essentially a beacon ward.

What struck me, sitting in a room with colleagues from my Trust, members of the team from Salford, and other teams from Sheffield, Bradford, Birmingham and Guernsey, was the opportunity for learning and sharing. This is something I think we do very well in the clinical audit community, through our networks, taking and valuing the opportunities to learn good practice from each other, to commiserate over workloads, to just know that there are colleagues out there you can call on if you need advice.

I am privileged to be chairing the Mersey Clinical Audit Network and am able to meet on a quarterly basis with the teams from across the region, while also linking up with fellow network chairs across the North West, and then also on a national basis with the other chairs who sit on NQICAN. To put it simply, it’s just great to be able to connect with people who do a similar job that you do, and know what it’s like to work in the same environment.

Clinical Audit Awareness Week is a good opportunity for us all to reflect on the value of being members of a network. After all, it’s good to talk.

Have a good Thursday, everyone!

Michael