The criteria listed in the protocols can be altered and tailored to suit the individual needs of practices. Over the past 3 years it has become clear to the Suffolk MAAG that there are several practices quite happy to evolve their own protocols. This site is aimed at those busy practices where the doctors wish to start the audit process, but have little or no time for this extra commitment due to the day to day pressures of work. Practices may wish to employ an audit clerk with 3-4 hours per week protected time to carry out audit. The protocols in this pack can be used when applying for MAAG funding and then given to the audit clerk to complete.
Clinical audit refers to audit carried out by any health care worker and includes medical audit.
To ensure that audit contributes to continuing professional development To achieve change in clinical practice through a process of setting standards and comparing clinical performance with those standards To form the provision of health care and facilitate the sharing of group practice. Most doctors are beginning audit from a low level of knowledge and skills. Whilst there is a great deal more to be done in increasing effectiveness and sophistication of audit, GPs have accepted the requirement to participate and many are beginning to devise innovative approaches. Many embark on audit projects without a clear idea of what they are seeking to achieve. Audits of this kind are undertaken to discover what is going on, rather than to put anything right, and rarely lead to demonstrable improvements.