How to use these standards to audit your practice or service

The structure of the standards

The standard statements define expectations or requirements. Each statement has a number of criteria against which you audit your practice or service. Some of the criteria are specific and measureable, relating to structures, processes or outcomes of intervention, where physical evidence of compliance can be sought or seen. Other criteria reflect the qualitative nature of some of the standards, relating to behaviours or attitudes in practice. These require you to examine your own practice and/or that of your colleagues, perhaps through observation, group discussion or as part of supervision.
 
In each case you will need to document the evidence for your response. Some criteria will only require you to check one situation or factor, others, such as an audit of record keeping, will require you to look at a number of representative examples, and then collate your findings.
 
The standards and their criteria are very comprehensive so may appear daunting when looked at as a whole. You can work through the different sections of the standards over time. You can use this resource as an individual or as a team. You can ‘pick and mix’ to meet your priorities or current requirements. An audit log page has been developed, allowing you to record the progress you are making.

Audit needs to be part of your regular ongoing activity

The Health Professions Council (HPC) requires you to:

• be able to audit, reflect on and review practice
• understand the principles of quality control and quality assurance
• be aware of the role of audit and review in quality management, including quality control, quality assurance and the use of appropriate outcome measures
• be able to maintain an effective audit trail and work towards continual improvement
• participate in quality assurance programmes, where appropriate
• understand the value of reflection on practice and the need to record the outcome of such reflection
  (HPC 2007, section 2c.2)

 
By auditing your practice or service against these standards, and reflecting on the outcomes, you begin to meet these particular HPC quality requirements. The results of auditing your personal practice can be included in your continuing professional development (CPD) portfolio, along with your other evidence of learning and development.
 
Audit is a cyclical process of setting standards and checking your practice against the criteria. Where you do not meet the criteria, you need to identify what changes need to be made, by whom and by when. After the changes have been made, you need to re-audit this area to see if you now meet the standard criteria.
 
It may be that meeting some of the criteria is not actually your practical responsibility, for example, the disposal of care records, but you need to be sure that you are part of an organisational system, or working as part of a service, that does meet this requirement.
 
You may work for an organisation that carries out audits centrally. If this is the case they may be able to incorporate these professional requirements into their audit. You would not need to duplicate the process.

Using the audit forms

The audit forms give you a number of optional answers against each criterion, which then assigns a score. If you fully meet the criterion you score 2, if you partly meet it you score 1, if you do not meet it at all you score 0. If the criterion is not applicable to you or your work, you score 2. Your score will give you an indicator of your level of compliance. A total possible score is provided for each section of the standards, allowing you to work out percentage compliance, if wanted. You can compare your score when you repeat the process.

When local policy says different

There may be specific areas where the criteria are based upon best practice that is more than your local policy requires. You may also find that occasionally local circumstances prevent you from meeting some of the criteria. In such a case, where local circumstances cannot be changed, it will have an effect upon the outcome of your audit. This may need to be accepted and explained within your audit results.
 
In this situation you need to be sure that you are meeting your legal responsibilities, your duty of care to your service users and all HPC requirements. If you are concerned that your local policy is causing you to fall short of your legal and professional duties, or it puts the welfare of your service users, yourself or your colleagues at risk, you need to raise this with your employer. You are advised to contact the College of Occupational Therapists in such situations, as they may be able to advise you.
 
Page summary
Guidance on auditing your practice or service against the standards and criteria.