Research is about obtaining new knowledge and finding out what treatments are the most effective. Clinical audit is about quality and finding out if best practice is being practised. Research tells us what we should be doing. Clinical audit tells us whether we are doing what we should be doing and how well we are doing it.
The National Research Ethics Service makes a clear distinction between clinical audit and research and states that, unlike research, clinical audit does not need approval from a research ethics committee.
For more information see the Differentiating Audit, Service Evaluation and Research document on the National Research Ethics Service website.
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