[Skip to content]

NCAS Homepage
Loading
.

Bringing expertise to the resolution of concerns about professional practice

NCAS Who We Are

Who we are

NCAS helps improve patient safety by helping to resolve concerns about the professional practice of doctors, dentists and pharmacists in the UK and overseas. We provide expert advice and support, clinical assessment and training to the NHS and other healthcare partners.

 

NHS managers and commissioners with concerns about a practitioner's performance should contact us at the earliest opportunity. Most of our services are free of charge to the NHS.

 

Update

As of 1st April 2013 NCAS is an operating division of the NHS Litigation Authority (NHS LA).

 

NCAS How We Work

How we work

NCAS works to resolve concerns about the practice of dentists, doctors and pharmacists. Our aim is to work with all parties to clarify the concerns, understand what is leading to them and make recommendations to help the practitioner to deliver a high quality and safe service.

 

We respond to calls about any aspect of individual or team practice, even where it is not yet clear whether there is evidence of poor practice.

 

We can provide advice on long-standing and complex cases.

 

We also provide advice on developing local clinical governance procedures.

 

All our services, with the exception of team reviews, are currently free of charge to NHS organisations.

Business woman on phone

Call us


The NCAS core office hours are 9.00am to 5.00pm, Monday to Friday. Our contact numbers are:


We provide a 24-hour service and our out of hours emergency contact number for all offices is 020 7972 2999. A recorded message will provide you with a mobile number on which to contact the NCAS adviser on call.

People networking outside an office

Learn with us

NCAS is a learning organisation, committed to the promotion of effective professional governance through an external education programme and publication of analyses of casework experience.

We run free educational workshops across the UK to help managers deal more effectively with performance concerns about dentists, doctors and pharmacists. Workshops are interactive, using fictitious case studies as learning tools and sharing the experience and expertise of NCAS. Workshops serve audiences defined by specialty and sector interests as well as for multi-disciplinary groups defined by geography. Some workshops are organised for managers within a single organisation – contact us if you would like to work with us.

You can find all our good practice and research publications on this website.

news image

New arrangements for Alert Notices

The NHS Litigation Authority, through NCAS, is now operating the Healthcare Professional Alert Notices (HPAN) system, following a letter from  NHS England to medical directors. More

NCAS joins the NHS Litigation Authority 

On 1 April 2013, the National Clinical Assessment Service (NCAS)  became an operating division of the NHS Litigation Authority (NHS LA). Our contact details remain unchanged. More 

Mid Staffordshire Public Inquiry

We are reviewing the Government's response to this important report and will work closely with the other national agencies which have a role in securing safe, high quality services, to play our part in helping to minimise the risk of such a serious failure happening in the future.

NCAS research 

Read How to develop and assess the leadership skills of psychiatrists, by NCAS Senior Assessment Adviser Nick Brown, in Advances in psychiatric treatment(2013), vol.19, 30-37 doi:10.1192/apt.bp.111.009688.