Scribd
Upload
183 views2 pages

How To Write Your Audit Report

This document provides guidance on how to structure an audit report in 12 sections: i) Title, ii) Date, iii) Author, iv) Reason, v) Criteria and Standards, vi) Methods, vii) Executive Summary, viii) Results, ix) Missing Data, x) Conclusions, xi) Recommendations and Action Plans, and xii) Appendix. The guidance recommends including important details like the audit purpose and methodology to allow replication. Results should be displayed simply through charts and tables alongside raw numbers. Conclusions should be concise while recommendations and action plans suggest improvements.

Uploaded by

Asiful Islam
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
183 views2 pages

How To Write Your Audit Report

This document provides guidance on how to structure an audit report in 12 sections: i) Title, ii) Date, iii) Author, iv) Reason, v) Criteria and Standards, vi) Methods, vii) Executive Summary, viii) Results, ix) Missing Data, x) Conclusions, xi) Recommendations and Action Plans, and xii) Appendix. The guidance recommends including important details like the audit purpose and methodology to allow replication. Results should be displayed simply through charts and tables alongside raw numbers. Conclusions should be concise while recommendations and action plans suggest improvements.

Uploaded by

Asiful Islam
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

How to Write an Audit Report

Howard Cooper
Clinical Governance
February 2008

You worked hard to complete your audit, so it’s only being fair to yourself to write it
up well. The following is guidance to help you structure your audit report.

Format: Whilst Powerpoint is good for presentations you will need Word for a formal
report.

Font: One of the ‘corporate’ fonts – verdana or arial is a good choice – most people
find them easy to read.

Layout:

i) Title:
Give your report a short title
ii) Date:
Give the date of your report – this will allow people to see how timely the report is
iii) Author:
Give your name, department and job title – many people may find your audit
interesting and will wish to contact you about your audit
iv) Reason:
Give the Background – Explain why you are doing an audit – was it a response to
concern or complaint, personal interest, national guidance, repeat of previous audit
etc.
v) Criteria and Standards:
Give the criteria and standards that you are using – Explain if you are auditing to
national standards, such as NICE, NSF etc or to established good practice or to a
locally agreed standard.
eg “100% of A&E patients must be assessed within 4 hours (national standard)”
vi) Methods :
Give the methodology of your audit –you will want to describe both the size of your
audit and how you selected those who were involved.
eg “the first 10 patients attending the 13th May 2007 afternoon dental clinic were
selected” or “20 notes of patients admitted to the ward in August 2007 were
selected at random”.
Ideally, there should be sufficient information for a person reading your report to
understand what you have done, and if need be, to repeat the audit themselves.

vii)Executive Summary:
A short abstract or executive summary here will help draw the reader’s attention to
important issues.

viii) Results:
Displaying the results:
As a general rule the simplest ways of describing results are the best. Pie-charts to
show the various proportions of responses or bar charts to compare one thing to
another will work well
However, always give the raw numbers as well as the percentages otherwise one
might over-simplify to the point of being mis-leading.

e.g Remember the advertising slogan, “8 out of 10 cats prefer it”.

Howard Cooper Clinical Governance February 2008


This was a powerful statement indicating an 80% favourable rating, but……….

The advertising authorities forced them to change it when it was revealed that when
100 people were asked, 90 said their cat didn’t seem to really care what food it ate.

In fact, only 8 of the 100 owners said they thought their cat liked a particular brand. 2
of the 100 said that the named brand of cat food made their cats ill!
So far from being a strongly positive endorsement, the majority of individuals didn’t
really care one way or another and for every four individuals who were satisfied one
individual had an adverse reaction.

ix) Missing data


– If you have missing data comment on why this happened. eg “questionnaires were
given to 10 patients in the waiting room. However one patient said he had felt unwell
and didn’t feel he could finish the questionnaire. Sections 9 and 10 are therefore
blank for this patient”

x) Conclusions -
Keep you conclusions short and to the point
eg 95% of patients were assessed within 48 hours

If you have had any problems with the audit, note them here.
eg 6 of the 50 patients approached didn’t have English as a first language and found
it difficult to complete the questionnaire, may need to have a translation in future
audits.

xi) Recommendations and Action plans.


Finally make your suggestions as to how the service could be improved – either by
yourself or others

xii)Appendix:
If your audit is particularly long or complex you can always attach your audit tool or
questionnaire to your report as an appendix – might save a lot of explanation.

Howard Cooper Clinical Governance February 2008

You might also like