High quality markers for clinical audit - focus groups

In our role in reinvigorating local and national work on clinical audit, one of our first tasks is to secure agreement on what constitutes markers or criteria for quality in audit.

There is a huge volume of audit undertaken, some good, some very good, and some less so. This arises partly because there is no national, consensually agreed definition of the markers of quality in audit.

There are good examples of individual organisations or publications which have sought to define quality in audit. However there is no agreed definition that covers local and national practice in one simple set of standards.

In our first few months, this is something that has consistently been requested. People want to see such a standard for various purposes, not least of all simply for practitioners to make their own assessment of the quality of the work they are doing. In the future, this validated list of criteria could also have other uses, for example in the revalidation process.

Such a list of criteria would need to cover variations in setting and professional involved, for example:

• definition of a good quality local audit project
• definition of a good quality national audit
• definition of adequate participation in audit by an individual clinician
• definition of what constitutes an adequate response by an individual clinician to the results of audit that relate to his/her practice
• an organisational element, eg whether there is an adequate system of support for the clinical audit function within trusts.

In the next few months HQIP will work to develop a consensus on what constitutes audit quality by using the following process:

• a desk based review of existing quality markers used or published in various settings, both from the UK and international literature
• the development of a draft set of criteria drawn from those sources and a series of focus groups
• consulting widely on these criteria
• publishing a definitive set of criteria based on consultation
• consulting on the uses organisations and clinicians may have for these criteria - for example in prioritising local audit projects, self-assessing individual work or validation of individual work within a professional organisation.

To begin the process, we held a set of focus groups throughout the country. 

If you would like to take part in the wider consultation, or if you have examples of criteria you currently use (either devised by you or that you have drawn from a specific source), please contact Kim Rezel via kim.rezel@hqip.org.uk or on 020 7464 4334.

We expect this work to be completed in late spring 2009.

See also: Audit tools | Local clinical audit guidance | National clinical audit guidance | News