New contract enforces all GP surgeries to submit data to diabetes audit

All GP surgeries will have to submit information to the National Diabetes Audit (NDA), it has been announced.
The changes will form part of the General Medical Services (GMS) contract which is being negotiated for next year.
The NDA brings together information from both GP surgeries and hospitals, and shows key findings and recommendations for care processes and treatment targets which have been put in place for people with diabetes.
The findings are used to help make changes and improve services in a bid to improve people’s health outcomes.
The decision to make all GPs submit healthcare information comes after the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said practices submitting information had dropped from 80 per cent to 71 per cent in 2012.
The organisation said lack of participation was “undermining one of the most comprehensive audits in the world”.
NHS England and the Department of Health blamed the slight decrease on practices taking part on GPs being able to “opt in” to sending data, rather than “opting out”.
The PAC has also recommended GP surgery computers and general IT software needed to be updated to help them to submit the information for the audit.
The clinical audit is used to measure the effectiveness of diabetes healthcare against NICE Clinical Guidelines and under the new changes surgeries will contractually be obliged to participate.
Earlier this month, the results from the NDA 2015-16 were released and showed that diabetes care has improved in the last six years across three key treatment targets in England and Wales.
The annual report is published by NHS Digital in partnership with Diabetes UK. It is commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) as part of the National Clinical Audit Programme.