TERMS OF REFERENCE
The Cardiac & Stroke Network has the following key objectives:
* To ensure
that cardiac services develop to meet the standards in the National
Service Framework, comply with NICE guidelines and generally
improve the health of the people in North West London and the
services available to them.
* To establish support for a sector-wide
approach to planning, commissioning and assessing the performance
of coronary heart disease services and to develop robust mechanisms
for involving local people, PCTs and trusts in this approach.
The
role of the Cardiac & Stroke Network for North West London is to:
PLANNING
* Develop plans for specialist heart services
in line with the existing strategy, including developing modern
capacity for providing revascularisation and heart surgery
in line with national targets for providing treatment and
responding to patient choice.
* Plan the coherent development
of the full range of CHD services, linking specialist and local services
for preventing, diagnosing and managing the treatment of acute and
chronic heart disease.
SERVICE DEVELOPMENT
* Plan the development of coherent, locally supported,
evidence-based clinical strategies for treating heart disease
across the entire patient journey, ensuring that agreed
changes in clinical practice are implemented and shared
throughout the Network.
* Support the development of the
North West London CHD Collaborative to make best use of its resources
and maximise the benefits of the service development methodology
it employs in improving services.
* Establish clinical advisory and
other project groups to review and make recommendations
on specific areas of work or developments, ensuring representation
from across the sector.
* Oversee the implementation of
Network wide elements of the NSF, NICE guidance and other National
CHD policies.
LINKS
* Establish links with other Clinical Networks, for example,
the Diabetes Clinical Network, to discuss areas of common
concern, including disease prevention and treatment. This
will include the early identification and treatment of
diabetes and coronary heart disease, with local mechanisms
for monitoring patients with diabetes who may develop heart
disease.
* Establish links with health communities outside
North West London which currently refer patients to specialist
cardiac services in the sector, to take account of their
needs and strategies in planning future services.
MONITORING
* Monitor the development of local cardiac networks
whose functions are
to develop linked local services across primary, community - including
local authority - and secondary care and into specialist
centres for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of
heart disease.
* Agree an effective
means for agreeing an integrated system for quality assessment and improvement.
*
Develop a network wide clinical governance strategy, quality assurance
and peer review mechanism for cardiac services.
COMMISSIONING
* Develop appropriate sector-wide commissioning arrangements,
starting with specialist heart services, and then agree
development priorities across the whole spectrum of CHD
services in NWL, seeking the agreement of the Directors
of Commissioning to improve service capacities consistent
with those priorities.
WORKFORCE
* Develop a modern, skill workforce able to provide
high quality, effective coronary heart disease services
and address particular problem areas for recruitment and
retention of staff, working closely with the Workforce
Development Confederation.
The Chair of the Cardiac & Stroke Network
Board is accountable to the Chief Executives of the acute
Trusts, Primary Care Trusts and the Strategic Health Authority
for the work of the Network and will report back to this
community at regular intervals about progress in achieving
the agreed objectives. The Chief Executive will also, when
necessary, bring specific proposals to the group of Chief
Executives for agreement by the wider community. (November
2004)
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