Audit of Audits in an Orthopaedic University Teaching Hospital: Eight and a Half Years of Experience

Abstract

Clinicians should always strive to provide a quality service to patients and continuously improve practice. Audit has existed in many fields as a means of reflecting on existing practice in order to improve efficiency and outcome through the implementation of change. In 1989 the white paper Working for Patients introduced the concept of audit as a systematic peer review of medical care that should be part of the routine clinical practice of all doctors. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) defined clinical audit as 'a quality improvement process that seeks to improve patient care and outcomes through systematic review of care against explicit criteria and the implementation of change'. Audit is therefore an integral part of clinical governance and, if correctly performed, substantial clinical benefits as described by Singh et al can be achieved.