Clinical Audit
At Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust we value clinical audit as a tool to assess the care we provide for our patients.
Clinical audit is a quality improvement process that evaluates whether healthcare is being delivered in line with established standards. It helps identify areas of good practice and highlights where improvements can be made to enhance patient care.
At its heart, clinical audit asks: ‘Are we doing what we should be doing – and can we do it better?’
Clinical audit is a vital tool for:
- Improving patient outcomes by ensuring care aligns with best practice
- Identifying gaps in service delivery and implementing change
- Supporting clinical governance and accountability
- Driving efficiency while maintaining high standards of care.
By systematically reviewing care against evidence-based criteria, clinical audit:
- Ensures safe, effective, and person-centred care
- Promotes continuous learning and improvement
- Enables benchmarking against national standards
- Encourages multidisciplinary collaboration to solve problems and implement change.
Audits can be:
- National: These are led across the NHS to review care in key priority areas,. They help benchmark performance and drive improvement on a wide scale.
- Local: These are initiated by Dorset County hospital to explore topics that matter most to our services and patients. Local audits reflect our commitment to continually enhancing care based on our own priorities and patient experiences.
National and Local audits contribute to a broader understanding of care quality and help shape better services.
Clinical audit is a team effort from frontline staff to support services, across all clinical and non-clinical disciplines, each team member contributes valuable insight.
Patients and carers also play a vital role in Clinical Audit – sharing their experiences helps shape audits that truly reflect what matters most in care delivery. Together, we create a cycle of reflection, learning, and improvement that drives safer, more effective services for all.
Examples of audits Dorset County hospital have participated in can be found in our Quality Account reports.