Clinical Neurophysiology National Audit Conference 2014
A joint meeting between BSCN and ANS was held on 10th October 2014 at Jury’s Inn
in Birmingham, with 135 delegates attending.
The programme included an introduction giving a resumé of the achievements of the
National Audit Project to date and some ideas for future development. This was
followed by a talk from the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership on how
HQIP can help in performing clinical audit. Each of the 3 audit projects was presented
and included a literature review of the topic. All presentations can be viewed on the
accompanying PowerPoint slides.
The results of the photic stimulation and paediatric sleep induction projects were used
to draw up provisional National Standards and Guidelines. On the basis of the ensuing
group discussion these Standards and Guidelines will be subject to revision and then
circulated to professional body members before publication on the BSCN and ANS
websites.
The audit of the BSCN/ANS Standards for nerve conduction studies in ulnar
neuropathy at the elbow produced some discussion as to whether certain existing
Options should be upgraded to mandatory Standards. This information will be fed
back to BSCN and ANS for further consideration. Feedback on adherence to the ulnar
nerve conduction standards for individual centres can be given confidentially on
request from Jeff Holman (Jeffery.holman@porthosp.nhs.uk). The day concluded with
a discussion session to obtain ideas for further projects. Suggestions for further work
included:
- Non-epileptic attack disorder: techniques for inducing seizures including ethical
considerations (Simon Veal) - Efficacy of Ambulatory EEG with a view to producing standards including referral
criteria (Peter Bill) - Polygraphy standards: when and how to use it (Sara Callen)
- Clinical audit against new BSCN/ANS hyperventilation guidelines (Lesley Grocott)
- Safety of Sleep deprivation (Catherine Pang)
- Standards for safety resources for emergency care eg cardiac arrest, seizures etc
(Adrian Fowle) - Survey of methods of report generation including information governance (Gareth
Payne) - Standardisation of patient satisfaction questionnaires (who suggested this?)
- Survey of changes implemented in response to new national guidelines (Jeff Holman)
Possible external sources of funding for the projects were discussed. A significant
number of centres expressed concerns that their departments would not be able to pay
a registration fee to cover administrative costs no matter how small the amount (a fee
of £25 for the two year cycle had been proposed).
It was suggested that a further joint national audit meeting should take place in
Autumn 2016 separate to the regular BSCN and ANS scientific meetings.