Guide for clinical audit, research and service review

This guide will help healthcare professionals and clinical audit staff to differentiate between clinical audit, research and service review activities. It allows the proposed data collection activity to be correctly categorised most of the time i.e. accepting that no differentiation tool can be 100% comprehensive.

It is an educational risk management tool which aims to

• reduce the risk of contravening the research governance framework
• promote adherence to local clinical governance requirements
• reduce the potential of using unsafe data to confirm or change practice.

The key elements are:

• Simple rules which define clinical audit, research, and service review (development and evaluation) activity
• Rules in questions that can be used to confirm the type of activity
• Guidance for consideration by NHS organisations when setting up their structure and approaches for authorisation and management of clinical effectiveness activities
• Ethical principles applicable to clinical audit and service review that provide guidance on setting up and conducting a project in line with clinical governance requirements
• Advice on how all proposed changes to practice must consider the clinical impact and risk to patients.

Download Guide for clinical audit, research and service review

Please note that, in order to protect the environment, HQIP resources have been designed to be printed in duplex, ie double-sided. If you choose to print single-sided, blank pages will appear within the document. Furthermore, HQIP tools and templates are designed using Microsoft Office packages and may lose formatting should they be opened in other formats.

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