“A quality improvement process that seeks to improve patient care and outcomes through systematic review of care against explicit criteria and the implementation of change. Aspects of the structure, processes, and outcomes of care are selected and systematically evaluated against explicit criteria. Where indicated, changes are implemented at an individual, team, or service level and further monitoring is used to confirm improvement in healthcare delivery.”

(The Principles for Best Practice in Clinical Audit (2002) endorsed by the National Institute of Health Care and Excellence)

Benefits of using Clinical Audit and NICE guidance recommendations in your service:

• Identifies, promotes and enables good practice;
• Compares actual practice by measuring care delivered against standards determining whether current practice follows published guidelines;
• Improves patient experience and outcomes;
• Provides evidence that demonstrates where services are cost effective;
• Enables better use of resources and therefore, increased efficiencies;
• Improves communication and liaison between clinicians, managers, patients, services users and organisations.

The clinical audit team register and monitor all clinical audit activity within the trust. Please remember that all clinical audits undertaken within the trust must be registered with the team in line with the Clinical Audit policy.

We are available to support staff with National “must do” audits and trust priority audits. New templates are available to assist auditors to write up their clinical audit reports.