Impact of hospital and community provider based clinical audit programmes: perceptions of doctors, nurses and other health professionals.

A postal survey of staff (doctors, nurses, midwives, health visitors, therapy professionals, senior managers and clinical audit staff) was conducted in three English hospital and community healthcare providers. The aim was to assess staff perceptions of the impact of local clinical audit programmes and to investigate differences between staff groups. The questionnaire contained a 24 item opinion scale with a summary total: 371 out of 566 questionnaires were returned completed (66%). The majority of respondents were positive about the impact of clinical audit in their organizations, which is encouraging. However, there was a wide range of responses and significant variations between professional groups. Medical staff were significantly less positive than non-medics (p = 0.0007), and junior staff significantly less positive than seniors (p = 0.0306 for doctors and p = 0.0013 for other health care professions). After over five years experience of clinical audit in UK hospitals and community providers, many local staff remain sceptical about its real value.