CVDPREVENT in Dublin: The team present at the National Office of Clinical Audit (NOCA) conference
NHSBN’s audit team is part of a clinical audit community, with teams across the world collecting and reporting clinical data with the aim of improving services and care for patients. Together, we can share our successes, discuss our challenges and collaborate, in order to perfect what we do and innovate new processes. That’s exactly what we were able to do when NOCA invited the CVDPREVENT team to join them and present at their annual conference.
About NOCA and their annual conference
NOCA manages national clinical audits in Ireland that aim to improve patient care and outcomes. NOCA’s findings enable the healthcare system to act to improve care where standards are not followed. Each audit focuses on a unique area of healthcare such as hip fracture, major trauma, hospital mortality, ICU care and joint replacements.
The team at NOCA run an annual conference with the theme for 2025 stated as ‘Data-Driven Healthcare: Planning, Delivering, Improving’. This in-person event is an excellent opportunity to network with individuals and teams that work with clinical data and understand the impact it can have.
Presenting the CVDPREVENT audit: a topic that’s close to our hearts
The CVDPREVENT team were delighted to be invited to present at the conference in Dublin in February 2025. Just a short journey over from Manchester, the team hopped on a flight to Dublin to visit the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland where the conference was held.
Opportunities like this give us a moment to reflect on the process of setting up projects such as CVDPREVENT, England’s national clinical audit of cardiovascular disease prevention in primary care. There were definitely challenges along the way as we navigated the collection of data from millions of patients as well as the development and design of a reporting tool with a wide range of users. Being able to share what we did and how we overcame barriers is a great reminder of how far we have come and makes us revisit our aspirations!
As a team, it’s important for us to refocus on our overall goal to use data to support the prevention of CVD in England. We know how much this matters to patients and carers who have lived experiences of CVD, a condition that can often have a sudden and substantial impact on individuals and their friends and family. At the NOCA conference we were able to share our insights into CVD prevention and highlight where our data shows opportunities for improvement.
Learning from others
The NOCA conference was a fantastic opportunity for us to learn from others and talk to like-minded people who have experience with clinical audit and data. We would like to thank the NOCA team for inviting us to such an insightful event, inspiring us to continue to innovate and develop our clinical audits!