Records of the RCOG Office for Research and Clinical Audit

Papers relating to the administration of RCOG's Office for Research and Clinical Audit, including steering group meeting papers, papers of the National Reproductive Health Research Network, and the Safer Practice in Intrapartum Care project.

The Office of Research and Clinical Audit (ORCA) was created in 2007 following a partnership agreement between the RCOG and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The aims of the agreement were:

To encourage and support rigorous audit in obstetrics and gynaecology, performed to a high standard

To enhance obstetric and gynaecological audit in the UK over the next decade

More specific objectives were:

To develop and evaluate methods for national as well as local audits

To provide a training environment for clinical and non-clinical research fellows to learn epidemiological and other relevant research skills

To contribute to the teaching of clinical audit and relevant health services research methodsStaff within ORCA was to work closely with colleagues of the Clinical Effectiveness Unit (CEU), which was established in 1998 as an academic collaboration between The Royal College of Surgeons and the Health Services Research Unit of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Projects carried out by ORCA were to be jointly led by a senior clinician with a special interest in the clinical topic involved alongside ORCA of School staff, responsible for project design, data collection and analysis, and interpretation.

The aim of ORCA was to focus its activities on large-scale (ie national) studies of the quality of obstetric and gynaecological care, using epidemiological methods. ORCA’s research and audit programme was expected to contribute to the development of expertise and experience in methods, organisation and logistics of large-scale studies of the healthcare quality and performance.ORCA was based at the RCOG in the Clinical Governance and Standards Department, and was composed of:

Professor Allan Templeton – RCOG Honorary Clinical Director

Professor Jan van der Meulen – LHSTM Honorary Director

Dr Tahir Mahmood – RCOG Vice-President Standards

Dr Suzanne Cox – RCOG HMB Audit Research Associate

Dr David Cromwell – RCOG/LHSTM Senior Lecturer

Mrs Charnjit Dhillon – RCOG Director of Standards

Dr Ipek Gurol Urganci – RCOG/LSHTM Senior Methodologist

Miss Benedetta La Corte – RCOG ORCA Administrator

Dr Chidimma Onwere – RCOG Clinical Research Fellow

Permission is required from RCOG senior management via the College Archivist for access to any of these files.