National Diabetes Audit (Core Audit)

NHS England has directed NHS Digital to establish and operate a system for the collection and analysis of the National Diabetes Audit (NDA) including the National Diabetes Audit Core Audit, which is part of the NDA programme of clinical audits.

People with diabetes should receive annual care checks each year and should be achieving a target for their blood glucose, cholesterol and blood pressure values; these annual checks and targets are outlined in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Clinical Guidelines and Quality Standards.

The main National Diabetes Audit, known as the Core Audit, collects information from general practices and specialist diabetes out-patient services to look at whether people with diabetes are:

• receiving their annual care checks
• achieving their treatment targets
• achieving expected health outcomes
• being offered and attending structured education.

This Notice is served on:

• GP Practices
• specialist out-patient diabetes services.

The NDA (Core Audit) collects information for a 15-month audit period covering 1 January to 31 March the following year.

The data is extracted from general practices on a quarterly basis via GPES. Indicative timings for extractions are:

• August: collection of data from January to June
• November: collection of data from January to September
• February: collection of data from January to December
• May: collection of full audit year data.

Data is extracted on a quarterly basis from GP practices; other providers are asked to submit data though the Clinical Audit Platform on a continuous basis throughout the audit period.

Update: 7 July 2021: Version 3.0 issued with updates to the Dissemination and Transparency sections to reflect current legislation; removal of obsolete timeframes to reflect ongoing continuation of collection.

Update: June 2019: Version 2.0 issued with updates to timeframes of collection.

June 2017: Version 1.0 issued to reflect NHS Digital as the collecting organisation.