** Download the 2011 Annual Report **

** Download the Latest NACR Newsletter **

The British Association for Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation, the British Heart Foundation, the Care Quality Commission, the Central Cardiac Audit Dataset project, the Royal College of Physicians, the DOH Heart Team, the CHD Collaborative, clinicians and patients have worked together to develop the National Audit of Cardiac Rehabilitation Project.

Changes in the NHS: new commissioning guides for Cardiac Rehabilitation and the role of the NACR

The Government have made big changes to the organisation of the health service. The white paper makes it clear that clinical audit will inform commissioning and that the new National Commissioning Board and the local Clinical Commissioning Groups will require high quality audit data from providers and the ability to benchmark against other services in the region. The NACR is ahead of the curve with these needs.

Department of Health Commissioning Pack
The Department of Health has produced a series of commissioning guides, the first of which is for cardiac rehabilitation. This is aimed at supporting commissioners and providers to achieve high quality and efficient services for cardiac patients. The Secretary of State launched the commissioning pack at the last national GP conference.

We have been working with the NHS Improvement Team piloting changes to the NACR database in 7 early adopting areas, so that in 2012, the NACR will be in a position to report the key performance indicators and clinical and patient outcomes required by commissioners using the DH pack.

NICE commissioning pack
At the same time the National Institute for Health and Clinical Effectiveness (NICE) have revised their CR commissioning guide, which presents the NACR as an exemplar audit for CR.

Commissioning guides supporting clinical service redesign

The BACPR
The British Association for Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation (BACPR) is the association representing cardiac rehabilitation professionals, which sets the standards by which clinicians work to in the UK. Existing and emerging minimum standards and core components from the BACPR (2007 and 2011) acknowledge the NACR as core and recommend it for evaluating CR programmes.

Summary

The NACR is the only audit that can meet the needs of the Department of Health CR Commissioning Pack and the NICE Service Commissioning Guides for heart failure and for CR .

In continuing to develop the NACR now fulfils all of the following roles:

• monitors patient progress through the service;
• evaluates programme effectiveness in terms of both clinical and patient-reported outcomes;
• benchmarks a CR programme against, local, regional and national standards;
• provides measures of performance and quality for commissioners including a field to capture patient satisfaction;
• provides evidence for the BHF and BACPR to campaign to protect and improve CR;
• helps patients find appropriate CR and BACPR Phase 4 programmes near them.

We know that we are entering potentially difficult times and many programmes are losing staff; although the NACR makes demands on staff time, all the evidence is that under the new commissioning arrangements it is likely to be an essential part of proving quality and claiming payment.

Prof Patrick Doherty, Prof Bob Lewin for NACR

** Download: What should I expect from cardiac rehabilitation? **

** Download the 2011 Annual Report **

** Download the Latest NACR Newsletter **

** 'Download the Updated Lotus Notes User Guide - Volume 4 **

If you would like further information please contact the Helpdesk:
Email: nerina.onion@york.ac.uk
Tel: (0)1904 321326

or one of the Project Team below.

Project Team

The NACR is managed by a project team that work as part of the BHF Cardiac Care and Education Research Group and are based in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York.

The NACR project team is directed by Professor Bob Lewin and is supported by the following team;

Corinna Petre
NACR Project Manager
Email: corinna.petre@york.ac.uk

Nerina Onion
Training and Information Officer
Email: nerina.onion@york.ac.uk

Veronica Morton
Research Fellow in Statistics/Epidemiology
Email: veronica.morton@york.ac.uk

Department of Health Sciences
Area 4, Seebohm Rowntree Building
University of York
York YO10 5DD