Clinical audit; who is auditing who?

Abstract

Clinical audit is the principal means by which current clinical practice is improved. Doctors in training must gain positive experience of audit as juniors, so as to establish the importance of audit for future practice. Good audit requires involvement of doctors in training, a high level of participation and a leading role to be taken by the professional bodies. To examine the degree to which such criteria are met currently, the quality and prevalence of clinical audit, the participation of junior doctors in audit, and the preparedness of medical professional bodies' to guide audit were assessed. One hundred and twenty-six junior and senior house officers in three Edinburgh hospitals were administered questionnaires in person, whilst eight Royal Colleges, the British medical Association and the General Medical Council were assessed by the quality of their written guidelines for audit. The data showed that only thirteen out of twenty four specialties, which employed half the juniors, utilised clinical audit. Half of these audit programs were structured to lead to improved patient care. Surprisingly, only three out of ten professional bodies were able to provide good quality audit information. In conclusion, clinical audit is not universal practice and many existing audit programs are inappropriately structured. Commonly, doctors at all levels seemed unaware of the goals of clinical audit. In addition, the majority of professional bodies provide poor information, thereby impeding successful audit by doctors in training. Clinical audit will not succeed until such deficiencies are rectified.