Core Skills in Clinical & Service Audit

Audit is a fundamental tool for improving both quality and performance in health and yet many healthcare professionals have never had any formal audit training, often resulting in a loss or dilution of the significant benefits it offers.  Commencing with the core skills necessary to run successful audit projects in either the clinical or service domains, we then focus on ensuring that audit results are built successfully into an improvement strategy that delivers consistent attention to factors contributing to results. This course is a highly comprehensive, practical programme designed to equip you with the very best knowledge, skills and ability in this vital competency.

The course is suitable for anyone who is involved in clinical audit; doctors (both junior and consultant), nurses, PAM and managers and the course content is relevant to all healthcare settings.

By the end of the course:-

• You should be able to:-
  o  Successfully perform your own audit
  o  Confidently lead an audit project including developing appropriate action plans
   
• You will have an understanding of:-
  o  How change occurs as a result of audit
  o  The key conditions needed to make change effective
   

Core Skills & Knowledge

• Definition of audit. Clinical vs. service audit
• Why do audit?
• The place of audit in a high performance, modern service
• Audit as a tool to improve clinical quality
• Audit as a tool to improve service performance
• Audit vs. Research
• Understanding the different types of audit
• Standards based audit – the audit cycle
• Structure, process and outcome audits – advantages and disadvantages
• Retrospective vs. prospective audits
• Choosing an audit topic
• Using quality impact analysis to develop audit topics
• The importance of clear audit purpose
• Identifying evidence of best practice
• Developing valid criteria and standards
• When there are no standards
  o  Developing consensus
  o  Use of the Delphi technique to help establish criteria & standards

• Ensuring confidentiality and adherence to Caldicott guidelines & the Data Protection Act during data collection 
• Developing appropriate data collection tools
• Ensuring effective data collection
• Sampling techniques
• How to analyse data
• Presenting data to develop clear understanding
• Developing appropriate action plans
• Writing an audit report

Advanced Skills & knowledge

• Importance of team leadership in audit
• Developing an effective audit environment
• Embedding audit across a diverse team
• Involving stakeholders in audit
• Project management skills necessary for effective team and multidisciplinary audit
• Effecting change as a result of audit
• Identifying & overcoming barriers to change
• Using Lewin’s Force Field Analysis as a basis for securing change
• From audit to continuous monitoring (key performance indicators)

The course consists of an engaging blend of lectures, exercises, discussions & case studies designed to truly embed the principles whilst developing the practical application of them. Course numbers are low to encourage discussion and debate, whilst ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to examine issues pertinent to them.

These are other courses that provide a good companion to this course.

• Core Skills in Finance & Financial Management for Clinical Leaders