Clinical Audit Tool

North West Ambulance Service, referred herein as the Trust is looking into market options to procure a clinical audit tool (CAT) that will support the clinical audit of patient care delivered by the Trust remotely and on scene.
Remote care is provided by the Trust’s Integrated Contact Centre (ICC) which combines service users who call the 999 and 111 service. Calls received create a patient incident which are managed through:
- Command, control and communicate computer aided dispatch (C3 CAD) for 999 calls; and,
- Single Patient Management System (SPMS) for 111 calls.

Depending on the primary triage code designated by either NHS Pathways (NHSP), NHS Pathways Clinical Consultation System (PaCCS) or Manchester Triage System (MTS) the patient incident may be resolved remotely either through hear and treat or referral. Secondary triage can be initiated to provide clinical oversight as appropriate.

Clinical audits for ICC check that staff are achieving performance standards and are a combination of:
- Live audits, i.e. listening into live calls; and,
- Retrospective audits, i.e. replaying a random selection of calls

Depending on the triage outcome remote care will not be possible and clinicians will need to be dispatched to provide on scene care. On scene care can be delivered by clinicians from either the Trusts Paramedic Emergency Services (PES) or Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) teams. On scene care could result in see and treat or conveyance outcomes. These outcomes will be recorded on the Trusts Electronic Patient Record (EPR) which inform the Ambulance Clinical Quality Indicator (ACQI) and Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Outcomes (OHCAO) registry returns.
The output from the CAT shall provide reports to satisfy regulatory reporting requirements as well as the ability to output aggregable data for the Trust to generate reports for performance feedback from organisational level down to individual.