Philippa Briggs Screening Quality Assurance Service
Programme Boards

AAAScreening Programme Boards
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Do you regularly attend programme boards?
Do you know your services performance against
national standards and nurse assessment waiting
times?

Attending boards
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• Observations indicate that it’s quite rare for nurses to physically attend all
programme boards;
- small teams
- priority is nurse assessments/seeing patients
- geography can be challenging
However it’s important to understand the role of the programme board, why we
have them and how you can contribute if and when required and what the
outputs are

Purpose of boards
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Programme Boards are forums, for stakeholders, to maintain quality in National
Screening Programmes.
They ensure that standards, as detailed in the Section 7A National Service
Specifications and the requirements of the NHS Public Health Function
Agreement are met.
Essentially a governance and oversight function as there are many
organisations involved in screening……….but also a chance to present the
good things services are doing and highlight the challenges that may be an
issue.

Organisations involved in screening
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UK
NSC
Providers
(NHS and private)
Public
Health
PHE
NHS
England
and NHS
Improvement
NHSD &
NHSX

Who goes to a programme board?
Programme Boards are chaired by a member of the screening and
immunisation team (SIT) – this may be the Lead (SIL), Manager (SIM) or Co-
ordinator (SIC)
From the service the Programme Co-ordinator/Manager and Clinical Lead
attend. Nurse(s), CST(s), QA Lead(s) should also attend.
Representative(s) from the providers management structure
(department/divisional leads)
Representative(s) from the Screening Quality Assurance Service
Representative(s) from other organisations involved in the screening pathway
Representative(s) from patient/public involvement
Other stakeholders as necessary – Public Health/Local Authority etc
Boards – (generally) are quarterly, mixture of face to face and via tel-con
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What type of things get discussed at a
programme board?
The board has oversight of quality and the continuous improvement of the
programme to:
• Support the reduction of health inequalities and inequity relating to the
programme’s local population.
• Monitor and review exceptions in programme performance against
nationally and locally agreed quality standards.
• Track service delivery against the current National Service Specification,
responding to any gaps or changes, and monitor completion of agreed
continuous improvement and remedial action plans as appropriate.
• Review of the programme risk register and mitigating actions.
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What type of things get discussed at a
programme board? cont
• Review and share learning of incidents and root cause analysis
investigations and formally close screening incidents.
• Review progress and record closure of Quality Assurance visit
recommendations and programme audits
• Monitor the provider’s workforce, training and equipment – identifying and
responding to any gaps and escalating through the Provider Trust’s and
NHS England’s commissioning, contracting and finance process. where
required.
• Identify and propose strategic objectives for the delivery of screening
services, future service development, redesign and improvement needs and
priorities in response to local evidence and national directives.
• Identify and share areas of emerging good practice
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What takes up most of the time at a
programme board?
Discussions on performance against standards
If there’s been an incident – what has happened/why/lessons learnt and what is
in place to prevent re-occurrence
If the service has had a Quality Assurance visit or is due to have one – what is
required and how are actions progressing
If there’s any risks – what they are, what the service is doing about them
What work the service is doing around service improvement and addressing
health inequalities
Compliments/complaints received
Sharing good practice and highlighting new guidance etc
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What programme boards don’t do
They don’t include discussions on financial or contractual implications – these
discussions are usually held between contract teams.
They don’t discuss individual (identified/named) performance issues and
management.
They don’t delve into outcomes from individual appraisals or discuss pay
issues.
Issues/concerns shouldn’t wait to be brought up at a board.
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Example nursing contributions
• Audits on access and uptake
• Audits on reasons for non-attendance and /or declines
• Audits on if face to face, are bp, weight, height etc available
• Waiting times against national standards – how many men are offered
an appointment within 12 weeks of initial scan? What exceptions are
reported?
• Workload trends
• Patient satisfaction results
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What can you do?
What are the barriers to attending a programme board – generally
time/resources/geography. Can any of these be removed so that you can
attend?
Key messages from boards should be fed back to teams via internal meetings,
detailed minutes and action logs are always produced by the Screening and
Immunisations Team. Make sure you are aware of what is being discussed and
how your service is performing
If you’ve done a piece of work or audit, you should be presenting the findings
and actions at a programme board, especially if it’s surrounding service
improvement
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