Measuring compliance to the NSF for children and young people in one English strategic health authority

Abstract

The audit tool reported in this article, has been constructed to objectively measure hospital compliance to standard 7 of the national service framework for children, young people and maternity services. This article reports on levels of compliance to the benchmarked criteria of the standard, in five discrete children’s hospital units across an English strategic health authority children, young people and maternity network. The audit results demonstrate that there are a number of areas that will require further work before all the criteria of the standard are fully met within the specified time period envisaged by the Department of Health. This paper will also be of interest to children and young people’s nurses in other countries with similar policy drivers.