Quality in Optometry How to Use This Website

Read about Quality in Optometry

Before checking your compliance with the standards, you should read the introduction to clinical governance and GOS contract compliance and the information on funding and reporting. The standards are based on the documents Standards for Better Health (England), Health Standards for Wales and the Primary Care Commissioning Framework for Contract Compliance. The standards for England and Wales are reproduced here with notes indicating how they apply to optometry.

The NHS Primary Care Commissioning Framework for Contract Compliance in England is basically just a checklist and is exactly reproduced in the English Level 1, along with help and advice. Your PCT should be using the PCC Framework for its contract compliance visits as this was developed with input from the optical representative bodies. The QiO England Level 1 Interactive Checklist is intended as an aid for practices to help them prepare for a compliance visit. It is not intended as self assessment form to be completed at PCTs’ request (unless an appropriate local funding arrangement has been agreed with the LOC for providing the information).

Contractor Checklist

1: Start the Contractor Checklist

When you are ready to check your own practice compliance, go to the Contractor Checklist and create and account and then create a new England or Wales checklist as appropriate by following the instructions on the page. You can save this checklist and give it a name for future reference.

The Contractor Checklist is made up of three separate checklists, split according to priority as follows:

Level 1 Contract Compliance
Level 2 Clinical Governance and Enhanced Services
Level 3 Advanced Governance

Level 1 mirrors the Contract Compliance checklist used by most PCTs and provided by Primary Care Contracting after consultation with the optical bodies.

Level 2 is clinical governance and covers the areas likely to be required for participation in enhanced services. This should be a funded level of clinical governance reporting, either separately or as a part of the fees negotiated for Enhanced Service schemes.

Level 3 is advanced governance. This is not required for Enhanced Services and would also require funding if reporting is required.

All of these levels are useful for improving quality within a practice, whether or not reporting to the PCT is requested.

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2: Start answering questions

Start a checklist. Work down the list selecting an appropriate response for each question. Don't worry about making mistakes as you may change your answer to any question at any time.

If you wish to add a note explaining your response, click Add Note to reveal a text entry box. If you are unsure about a question, click Show Help to show the compliance advice that relates to it. If you click a hyperlink within a help section, the link will open in a new window. Simply close the link window to return to your original position.

If you don't have time to fill in every question, you may save your responses (using the buttons at the bottom of the page) and return to complete the checklist later.

When you have saved your responses, return to the summary and you will be shown how compliant you are with the standards.

3: Generate a report

When you have completed a checklist, you may generate a report based on your responses.

  1. Choose which levels you want to report on (1–3). You can only report on levels you have fully completed.
  2. Choose either a full report (listing all questions and responses) or a compliance report (listing only questions where you answered no or don't know).
  3. Choose level order (the questions are grouped by level) or standard order (the questions from all four levels are sorted into standard order — this may be more appropriate for a PCT).
  4. Enter the name of your practice. This is not stored by the Interactive Checklist and is only used to generate the report.
  5. Choose between a web report and a PDF report. The PDF report is recommended as it will print more neatly and can be saved and sent electronically.

4: Save or delete your responses

If you log out, all your responses will be saved automatically. If you prefer, there is an option to permanently delete all your responses (you can start again with a blank checklist next time). Deleting your responses cannot be undone.

From time to time the questions and standards will be updated. A list of updates is available on the information pages for England and Wales. The Interactive Checklist will inform you if the standards have been updated since your last login.

I would prefer not to use the Contractor Checklist

If you would prefer not to use the online tool, you may download and print a blank checklist to complete offline.

Practitioner Checklist

Create a new checklist and then simply work through the list indicating whether you are aware or not aware of the requirements, or whether it does not apply.

Audit

The Interactive Audit section allows the creation of multiple audits of two different types – record keeping and infection control. These can be saved and named just as for the earlier checklists

Record keeping audit

The Record keeping audit is an online version of the spreadsheets unavailable in Level 1 Q13.5. It allows for the analysis of 10 records for a practitioner. You may wish to do this on random records, or for a particular type of patient, e.g. children, FHG etc. It may be something you would wish to repeat at intervals to demonstrate consistency or improvement. A guidance document is available for the record keeping audit.

Infection control audit

The Infection control audit leads the contractor through a checklist of items and then allows that to be printed as a statement of infection control. Completion of this audit is not a requirement for contract compliance, although it may be reasonable to require its completion as part of funded clinical governance or as a part of involvement in enhanced services.