Although audit and prescribing review are separate topics, many doctors have undertaken a review of their prescribing which has taken the form of an audit. Prescribing review needs to be undertaken against acknowledged standards, and these are widely available. Examples are practice or local formularies, Health Board prescribing guidelines and SIGN guidelines. You might decide to use an audit of your practice against a published standard in one of these areas. (Examples 1 and 3 below)
Audit has become an established part of general practice training and is now a recognised tool for examining the effectiveness of clinical care. It is suggested that you should be involved in two audits, at least one of which you should have contributed to, and both of which you have learned from and can show changes that you have made as a result.
It is recognised that sessional GPs may have difficulty in undertaking audit when they have no fixed practice base and are therefore unable to measure the effects of their care - for example in chronic disease management.
Using a log of some of your consultations can provide you with audit material. You can later repeat measuring similar consultation data to see whether any changes introduced after the first part of the audit have been effective. It can also provide you with data for examining aspects of your prescribing, if you need appraisal supporting information in that area.
This page was last updated on: 21/03/2022
