About the NASH Audit

Epilepsy is a very worrying condition for patients and the public, but with good care it can be better controlled and risks minimised. Many seizure presentations to Emergency Departments (EDs) could be prevented. NASH (the National Audit of Seizure management in Hospitals) examines the facilities and care available to such patients in order that it will identify how best to change services to reduce the numbers presenting at hospital. NASH is based on the successful methods used for many of the other national audits, and has been developed with input from emergency physicians, epilepsy specialists and patient groups. 

 

Three rounds of NASH have taken place. The first round (in 2011) saw 127 hospitals entering 3,755 cases onto the database. NASH2 took place in 2013, with 4,544 cases entered from 154 hospitals. St Elsewhere reports from real (but anonymised) hospital are available to download for both NASH1 and NASH2 from the "Media Centre" section of this website. Despite being the most common serious neurological condition (with around 600,000 people in the UK having the diagnosis), epilepsy is not high on the commissioning agenda – and indeed is often ignored behind the higher profiles of heart disease, COPD, diabetes and stroke. By collecting representative data from across the UK, NASH has raised the profile of epilepsy by providing comparative data that will encourage clinicians within Trusts and commissioners to include it actively when planning services. 

 

NASH 3 

In 2018 we were awarded funding by UCB pharma to run a 3rd round of data collection for NASH (NASH3). Participating sites collected data on cases attending EDs from 1st June 2018 to 30th June 2019. The audit was added to the 2019/20 quality accounts list held by HQIP. 

  

The last site completed its data entry in January 2020. The production of the individual site audit reports and the St Elsewhere report were delayed due to Covid-19, but individual audit reports have now been sent to the relevant hospitals. The St Elsewhere report for NASH 3 can be found in the "Report" section of this website.