Assessing NHS trusts' compliance with child health policy standards

An audit tool to undertake a baseline assessment of NHS trust compliance with contemporary healthcare polices was designed collaboratively by senior children's nurses across one English strategic health authority (SHA). Children's units in hospitals across the SHA were benchmarked against the audit tool standards throughout 2009. The aim was to identify good and less optimum compliance with best practice policy-driven benchmarks of care, using a 1-5 scale. Each NHS trust within the SHA was contacted to make arrangements with members of the interprofessional team to complete the baseline benchmarking exercise. The audit was conducted over 1 or 2 days. The majority of the evidence sourced comprised documented evidence and verbal affirmation of the individual perceptions of key informants with regard to how the range of clinical areas scored against the best practice benchmarks. Scores of policy compliance in some trusts audited ranged from 1 (non-compliant) to 5 (full compliance). The results demonstrate that many trusts are making good efforts to ensure full compliance to policy guidelines and mandates. However, there are some aspects of policy standards that trusts have yet to fully embrace. This initial benchmarking exercise on behalf of an English SHA has revealed many areas of outstanding and good practice which have the potential to be shared.