National Audit of Care at the End of Life (NACEL)

The National Audit of Care at the End of Life is a clinical audit program for NHS-funded end-of-life care in England, Wales, and Jersey. The initial 3-year contract has a maximum budget of £1,085,457 (excluding VAT) or £1,302,548.40 (including VAT), with a potential 2-year extension valued at approximately £723,638 (excluding VAT). The audit will collect data from multiple perspectives including patients, bereaved families, staff, and organizational contexts to measure quality and drive improvement in end-of-life care services. Key responsibilities include developing robust quality metrics aligned with NICE guidance, identifying and reducing clinical variation through performance benchmarking, enabling healthcare providers to access timely comparative data at multiple reporting levels (Trust, Health Board, ICS, MDT), engaging patients and carers meaningfully in audit design and direction, ensuring strong methodological rigor, and delivering accessible outputs including real-time metric results, annual state-of-nation reports, quality improvement resources, and outlier notifications. The audit must use effective project management to deliver all outputs on time and within budget while maintaining strong engagement with clinicians, commissioners, patients, families, and support organizations to drive sustainable service improvements across England, Wales, and Jersey.