The HSE National Centre for Clinical Audit (NCCA) provide a national focus for clinical audit to ensure that those who are conducting local, regional, and national audits have access to best practice information.

The NCCA are delighted to present to you the Fundamentals in Clinical Audit virtual training course delivered over one full day, developed in collaboration with the Clinical Audit Support Centre (CASC) in the UK.

The training is interactive and provides a wealth of educational resources and further signposting.

Eligibility Criteria

We would expect those enrolling to have limited or no experience of clinical audit.

Note: It is strongly advised that learners enrolling on this programme have completed the Introduction to Quality Improvement e-learning module which is hosted on HSeLanD.

Design and Delivery

The programme runs over one full day from 10:00hrs - 16:00hrs

Session 1 (Morning)

10:00 Registration

10:10 Welcome and Introductions

10:15 Overview of the National Centre for Clinical Audit

10:20 Clinical Audit Context

- How clinical audit has evolved

- Understanding why clinical audit is important

11:00 What clinical audit is and what it is not

- How clinical audit relates to research and service evaluation

- Ethical and data protection considerations

11:30 Break

11:45 A step-by-step guide to the audit process

- Selecting and prioritising clinical audit topics

- Setting an aim and objectives

- Practical exercise in prioritising a clinical audit topic

12:15 Identifying best practice

- Devising clinical audit criteria and standards

- Review of a best practice guideline

- Workshop session to devise a clinical audit proposal

13:00 Lunch.

Session 2 (Afternoon)

13:30 Introduction to the afternoon session

- Opportunity to answer questions following the morning session

13:40 Analysing clinical audit data

- Understanding the key analysis techniques

- When to use qualitative data and case studies

- Practical exercise to review skills

14:00 Completing the clinical audit cycle

- Implementing changes successfully

- Re-audit

- Exercise to consider barriers to change

14:45 Break

15.00 Clinical Audit Report writing

- Components of a best practice report

- Structure of a clinical audit report

- Tips and hints to successfully write an audit report

15:15 Clinical audit case studies

- Critiquing published clinical audit projects

16:00 Close