National Quality Improvement (Incl. Clinical Audit) Network (N-QI-CAN)

NHSE update on N-QI-CAN and regional networks

Monday 20th July 2026

Dear Colleagues,

As you will be aware, NHS England (NHSE) have asked HealthCare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) to establish National Clinical Audit and Clinical Effectiveness Collaborative (NCA-ACE) and the group has already met over the last couple of months. Please join the NCA-ACE forum here

We thought it best to explicitly say NHSE appreciates all the work and sustained efforts of the
N-QI-CAN members, especially the leads, who have developed and maintained the group over a significant number of years.

A couple of points have been mentioned in various correspondence, so we thought it best to respond.

  • Hopefully, N-QI-CAN members will appreciate the speed at which this group was established. NHSE was keen to move quicky setting up NCA -ACE to maintain the momentum and engage key members. NCA-ACE was essentially created due to N-QI-CAN lead members terms expiring and no expressions of interest being made from within the membership to take on the leadership roles. This approach is also cost neutral.
  • The approach we are taking to NCA-ACE is that we are keen this is used as a forum to share learning and practice between audit providers and key NHS colleagues, the content will no doubt evolve over time, we have also opted to keep NCA-ACE membership to NHS colleagues only.
  • In terms of regional leads, we appreciate and value the connections made across geographical footprints and if people wish to maintain those connections they can in a voluntary capacity and / or with support of their employing organisation.

I hope this explains the rationale for the approach we are taking, if anyone would like any points of clarification, these can be pointed at NCA-ACE@hqip.org.uk, and, depending on the query, answered by NHSE or HQIP.

Thank you for your ongoing support and I hope this addresses points raised by stakeholders.

Regards,

Richard Arnold
Clinical Programme Lead
Quality and Clinical Effectiveness
Medical Directorate
NHS England

N-QI-CAN – Notice of Pause

As nobody has stepped forward for the roles of Chair, General Secretary or Comms Lead for N-QI-CAN we have asked NHSE to consider a sustainable support model for the Network going forward. Therefore we are currently in an NHSE led pause until NHS announce in the coming weeks what the new support model will be.

NHS England recognise the value and impact of N-QI-CAN and will confirm the support and framework for N-QI-CAN over the coming weeks.  Please do ensure for local clinical audit programmes you keep focused as outlined below:

If you have a query, please do contact your regional N-QI-CAN chair on the email below and we have listed a number of resources for you:

Clinical Audit Awareness Week – Excellence in Clinical Audit Awards 2026 – HQIP

FutureNHS for NQICAN – National Quality Improvement (inc. Clinical Audit) Network [N-QI-CAN Forum] – Futures – the current NHS Futures platform linked to N-QI-CAN will become a legacy platform.

Contact for HQIP – HQIP – Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership

N-QI-CAN is a professional network of colleagues undertaking clinical audit and other improvement work across England and was founded in 2000 (under the name of National Audit Governance Group). We have 9 regional networks, covering over 500 organisations that provide care to patients across the NHS and hospices with over 1000 active members.

Our common purpose

To support our members to deliver high quality projects that help to improve patient care as part of local programmes.

To help achieve this, we have set out a plan that involves 5 key elements for us to lead and deliver on across our networks:

  • sharing and adoption of best practice
  • training and development of staff
  • development of the national clinical audit (NCA) programme / policy
  • alignment of the local clinical audit programmes with other Quality Improvement and Quality Assurance work.
  • Championing Clinical Audit as Quality Improvement tool and be the voice of our profession

To help lead our networks and our work we have a national group which meets quarterly.  This includes our 2 officers – a Chair and General Secretary that are elected every 2 years from our N-QI-CAN members. We also have a Communication Lead and Webmaster which are not elected roles.  Our Officers, Communication Lead and Webmaster have fulltime jobs that release them for protected time to undertake their relevant N-QI-CAN duties.  These roles support the 10 Regional Network Chairs and their members who are all independent with their own governance arrangements. In addition to this and our website – we also have the N-QI-CAN Forum for accessing relevant support, resources and information on the FutureNHS platform.

NHS England protect monies to allow for the ability to reimburse employees organisations.  This is reviewed annually (currently approximately £30K) and we have our own governance documents.

During the last 20 years QI has grown and grown across the NHS and there are now lots of other similar networks / groups and organisations across the country (Q network, HQIP etc.) and beyond (IHI).  Part of our forward plan is to work together with these partner organisations so that we remain relevant and learn, share and maximise our resources for the benefit of our members and patients.

If you would like to find out more about our networks or get involved please contact us on nqi.can1@nhs.net

Quick links:

Regional Networks pages: N-QI-CAN Regional Networks

N-QI-CAN Forum:  N-QI-CAN Forum