National Clinical Audit of Psychosis

The National Clinical Audit of Psychosis has been running since 2017 with the aim of increasing the quality of care that NHS Mental Health Trusts in England and Health Boards in Wales provide to people with psychosis. It follows on from the previous National Audit of Schizophrenia. The current contract held with the College Centre for Quality Improvement at the Royal College of Psychiatrists to manage the audit will come to an end in July 2022. Building on the achievements of this audit, NHS England and Improvement has asked HQIP to recommission an audit in this area. An open procurement process will be managed by HQIP.

The first year of the current psychosis audit looked at care provided to people with psychosis by inpatient and outpatient services. From year two, the audit has focused on the quality of care provided by Early Intervention in Psychosis teams. To date data has been collected via case-note audits and service-level questionnaires. The outputs produced have included national and organisation-level findings and recommendations for improvement. Key performance areas have included the assessment and treatment of physical health, health promotion, prescribing practice, use of evidence-based psychological treatments and access to services at times of crisis.

The standards for the psychosis audit have been based on Implementing the Early Intervention in Psychosis Access and Waiting Time Standard guidance (NHS England, NICE & NCCMH, 2016), which details a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommended package of Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) care (NICE Quality Standard [QS] 80, 2015; NICE QS102, 2015). All NHS Early Intervention in Psychosis teams with a total caseload size of fewer than 100 patients were asked to submit data on all patients meeting the criteria. Teams with a caseload size greater than 100 were asked to submit data on a random sample of 100 patients meeting the criteria.