Best Practice in Clinical Audit

Guidance | Published: 14 May 2020

The purpose of this document is to set out updated criteria for best practice in local clinical audit. These criteria will:

  • Provide guidance for clinicians and clinical audit staff on how to plan, design and carry out clinical audit projects that will deliver improvements in the quality of services
  • Allow the Boards and management of healthcare providers to evaluate and improve the quality of clinical audit activities that take place within their organisations
  • Allow those who commission or monitor healthcare services to assess the quality of clinical audit evidence provided to them
  • Provide service users with information on how they can participate in clinical audit, increasing their involvement and understanding of the process so that they can assess and improve the quality of the projects they are involved in

Best Practice in Clinical Audit is available to download via the link below.

As well as the guide, checklists are available which can be used to assess healthcare organisations, clinical audit programmes and clinical audits against the criteria. These checklists are designed to be downloaded and adapted for local use.

This guide was reviewed in 2020 by: 

  • Mirek Skrypak, Eva Duffy and Kim Rezel – HQIP
  • Sally Fereday – QI Consultant

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Best Practice in Clinical Audit