Epilepsy is a very worrying condition for patients and the public, and with good care it can be controlled. Many seizures presenting to emergency departments 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.

Two rounds of NASH have taken place. The first round took place in 2011 with a total of 3,755 cases being entered on to the database from 127 hospitals. NASH2 took place in 2013, with 4,544 cases entered from 154 hospitals. St Elsewhere's reports from real (but anonymised) hospital are available to download for both NASH1 and NASH2 from the "Newsletter and reports" section of our website.  We hope to find out soon if funding is available for us to run NASH3.

The audits focused upon cases presenting to emergency departments in the UK with a seizure. A simple-to-complete web-based data collection tool was used to enquire about immediate, previous and onward care pathways.

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 hopes to raise the profile of epilepsy by providing comparative data that will encourage clinicians within Trusts and commissioners within PCTs (or their successors) to include it actively when planning services.

The project is based on the successful methods used for many of the other national projects, and has been developed with input from emergency physicians, epilepsy specialists and patient groups.

If you wish to get in touch with the NASH team, click the 'Contact us' link at the left hand side of the page to email the study office.