The national CQUIN frameworks support the improvement in the quality of services and seek to create of new, improved patterns of care. This incentive rewards acute trust providers with revenue by demonstrating care improvements and/or implementation of national strategic aims into local practice. In 2015/16 in England, the CQUIN has set about improving the recognition of sepsis and subsequently its timely management. This was subsequently paired with a CQUIN framework (2016/17) to support antimicrobial stewardship activities and act as a trigger for acute Trusts to establish robust antimicrobial stewardship activities are embedded in local practice.

This national CQUINs aim to prompt local antimicrobial stewardship teams to continuously evolve their activities and match the national ambitions set out in the 5 year Antimicrobial Resistance action plan. Like all national incentives, local update and practice varies and successes are often matched with challenges and unintended consequences. This session explores some of the evidence to support the recent CQUINs, the challenges experienced in introducing these practices in to a busy Acute NHS Trust and how to balance the CQUIN objectives with local antimicrobial stewardship activities.