In 2010, the Clinical Audit Support Centre set up a clinical audit competition for junior doctors after we received feedback from a number of local clinical audit teams that the standard of junior doctor audit was largely unsatisfactory. Therefore, by inviting juniors to submit their audit work we would gain an insight into both the quality of projects and the appetite for clinical audit. In addition, setting up the competition seemed a logical undertaking to carry out given that junior doctors involvement in clinical audit and quality improvement is compulsory. The competition proved an instant success and has since become an annual feature on the clinical audit calendar. Indeed, since the competition was launched in 2010, the number of entries to the clinical audit competition alone has exceeded one thousand. Click here to read our timeline history of the competition.
In 2013, we decided to extend the competition to include a quality improvement category. Of course, we fully appreciate clinical audit is a quality improvement technique, but not all quality improvement carried out by junior doctors is clinical audit (many use PDSA, Model for Improvement, LEAN approaches, etc.). To clarify, entries that measure care against agreed standards, no matter how many times they do this are classified as clinical audit. Since launching in 2013, the QI competition has proved very popular, although we still tend to get slightly more clinical audit entries. The section below showcases all of our QI winners since the competition started in 2013:
2018
Developing information leaflets for children of parents admitted to mental health wards Byrne N, Epstein S, Gadelrab R, Murphy R, Quigley H, Sin Fai Lim C
South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
2017
“Cyclizine’s all the works”: Rationalising anti-emetic administration in gastroenterology
Pohl K, Pyle J, Magides A, Watson J
Torbay and Southern Devon Health and Care NHS Trust
2016
“Please don’t shock me”: a project on implantable cardioverter defibrillators at the end of life care and DNAR
Javaid M, Squirrell S, Chineah M, Hughes K, Farooqi F
Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals
2015
Referral Finder: Improving in-hospital referrals in Ninewells Hospital, Dundee
Cathcart J, Cowan N
NHS Tayside
2014
Dr Toolbox: an online directory providing a national solution to a local problem
Houston J, Barker W, Mew E, Qureshi I
Health Education England
2013
Improving the identity checking of theatre specimens
Wilson K, Lyons D, Palmer L, Carson D
South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust (Northern Ireland)