We recently held another Celebrating Audit event.

The events help raise awareness of how valuable audit is within CHFT and to showcase some of the best audits that get completed in the Trust each year. It  is an excellent opportunity for doctors and nurses to  enhance their portfolio and demonstrate they have completed a quality improvement project.

Dr Andrew Hardy, said: "I want to thank the junior doctors who supported this event by submitting abstracts and taking time to present at the meeting. The presentations were all very good but we were particularly impressed by Dr Al-Ashqar's audit which included some effective interventions and demonstrated an improvement in quality of x-ray examination done after joint replacement surgery.

"It is good to know what quality improvement work is going on in other areas of the Trust, and this is the first time an audit from the surgical division has been submitted for this event. The judges were pleased to see the enthusiasm for audit and we hope to see more high quality work submitted for next year's event."

The other shortlisted entries were Dr Sirpreet Kaurnd with L&S Blood Pressure Audit and Dr Emily Hughes, De Ella Dickenson with their D-dimer and troponin Audit.  D-dimer and troponin are blood tests that are used to aid diagnosis of VTE and ACS respectively. Anecdotal accounts have suggested that some patients are receiving both tests and it is not clear why. The clinical presentation of VTE and ACS differs sufficiently that patients should only receive one investigation. The pre-test probability of VTE or ACS will affect the interpretation of results and it is not clear if this is being taken into account prior to testing.  Prior audit of troponin testing in ED suggests many patients get a troponin done without clinical suspicion for ACS.

How does audit work?

All audits have to be registered with the department by filling out a project plan ( this needs to be signed off by a project lead usually a consultant ) if needed, we help with the proforma and patient lists.

Then they audit the patients using the proforma and analyse the results, present the findings and come up with an action plan to make the changes in practice if needed – ideally once the actions are implemented they should re audit to close the cycle to evidence that the changes have worked.