Clinical Audit

The Clinical Effectiveness Department (CED) supports clinical audit activity across the Trust and its main responsibilities include:

• Setting out the Trust Clinical Audit Programme
• Registering audit projects on the Trust Clinical Audit Database
• Agreeing the level of support that the facilitator will provide to the audit project (the decision will take account of Trust and specialty priorities)
• Advising and supporting on all elements of the clinical audit cycle
• Providing summaries of clinical audit findings and recommendations to the Board, or for inclusion in the Trust Quality Account (Report) or Clinical Audit Annual Report

The Trust has adopted the universally accepted definition for both national and local clinical audit as defined by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in their revised ‘Principles for Best Practice in Clinical Audit’ (2011) which defines clinical audit as:

“…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.”

Participation in clinical audit is a statutory and contractual requirement for healthcare providers.  The Trust must use the findings from national and local clinical audits, including clinical outcome reviews (previously national confidential enquiries), to ensure that action is taken to improve services for patients.