This is going to be perhaps our shortest blog since we commenced this blogsite in Summer 2019. It doesn’t need to be a long sprawling effort. It is a simple message.
Last week while periodically looking at Twitter (as we always do), we came across details of NOCA’s fourth annual conference held on 12 February. If you aren’t familiar with the acronym, NOCA are the National Office of Clinical Audit. NOCA support clinical audit in Ireland and partner with many familiar national audit providers, such as ICNARC, TARN, PICANet, etc. To find out more about their work, simply click here and/or follow NOCA on Twitter via @noca_irl
We are vaguely familiar with NOCA and have come across their tweets from time-to-time. But last week they literally lit Twitter up. On the back of their conference, they even managed to get ‘clinical audit’ trending for a short period. Now that is truly impressive. As far as we are aware, we didn’t get close to doing that during Clinical Audit Awareness Week despite all the efforts and input put into #CAAW19.
Indeed, the NOCA conference proved a massive success with over 500 delegates in attendance listening to a mix of national and international speakers. That number of 500 delegates rivals and maybe even surpasses the annual conferences that HQIP were holding at the Belfry a decade ago! And looking at the tweets from the event, it felt fresh, exciting and dare we even say… INVIGORATING.
The question is… if NOCA and Ireland can run events of this scale generating a real buzz online, can those of us on the mainland emulate them? Most local audit staff we know are desperate to attend a really forward-thinking event that showcases the value and impact of audit. The chance to listen to national leaders and international experts would be welcomed. And the opportunity to share work via competitions and exhibitions across 500+ people would be amazing. The question is… how do we make this happen? CASC are willing to assist as much as we are able… who else wants to make this happen in 2020?