Hand holding a pen, filling in a form with a stethoscope in the background

Clinical Audit

We can review current practice in healthcare to identify where to improve

Clinical audit gives staff a systematic way of looking at their current practice in relation to best practice, making quality improvements, improving outcomes for patients and measuring the impact of changes made.

What we do

SPH can provide a full service for local and national clinical audits, including:

  • Designing an audit template and

Either

  • Conducting the audit, developing recommendations, presenting the results and re-auditing after an appropriate period

Or

  • producing instructions and guidance for clinicians to carry out the audit
  • distributing the audit to the target group
  • processing payment to clinicians for completed audits (if appropriate)
  • cleaning and analysing the data collected
  • providing recommendations for future practice
  • presenting the results to a clinical audience.

Why choose SPH?

  • SPH has a wide range of experience of undertaking audit either as stand alone studies or as part of service reviews and clinical pathway assessment. The type of audits we have undertaken include:
  • Condition specific studies (e.g. breast cancer care against standards for care)
  • Clinical pathways of a number of conditions in a particular setting to check referral practices (e.g. primary care cancer audit)
  • Diagnostic pathway auditing to determine where delays may be occurring in the system (e.g. audit of 62 day cancer pathway).
  • Auditing use of particular drugs against guidance to ensure appropriate prescribing and access to treatments.
Case Studies

Audits on diagnostic pathways in primary care

SPH has undertaken primary care audits on diagnostic pathways for patients newly diagnosed with cancer for two regions of England. Commissioned by local clinical commissioning groups, together these audits included data from ~150 GP practices and ~3,600 cancer patients diagnosed within a 12 month period. The audits collected data on patient characteristics, symptoms, cancer type, location of first presentation and intervals in the diagnostic pathway, including identifying areas of potential delay. The analysis of the audit data highlighted variations between geographical areas and groups of cancer patients. They also provided an opportunity for GPs to reflect on their practice in the diagnosis and onward referral of patients with symptoms that might indicate cancer, build upon current good practice and inform service improvements.
Testimonials