It’s clinical audit awareness week!

Earlier this year, the CSP launched the Musculoskeletal (MSK) Physiotherapy Service Standards audit tool, alongside the MSK Physiotherapy Service Standards.

The tool was created to support MSK physiotherapy services to examine the quality of their service and identify areas for quality improvement.

There are eight separate standards, with quality measures for each. They are applicable to any healthcare setting within the UK and are aimed at services supporting adults over the age of 16. 

Service improvement takes time, and this tool enables members to audit their service against the standards to help prioritise areas for improvement. It also allows members to complete the audit at regular intervals to show your service improvement over time.

CSP professional adviser Julie Blackburn said:‘Within any service evaluation, audit tools are a great way to not only gather data, but also to improve the accuracy of the data gathered and help demonstrate a level of compliance.

‘We hope the MSK service standards audit tool will support clinicians in doing this and support the improvement of overall standards of care within MSK practice.’

Celebrating the benefits of clinical audits

Clinical Audit Awareness Week (CAAW) is a national campaign to promote and celebrate the benefits and impact of clinical audit and quality improvement work in healthcare.

Aimee Robson is the deputy director of personalised care (clinical, workforce and quality) for the Personalised Care Group at NHS England/NHS Improvement. Speaking to the CSP about the campaign, she said: 

‘Clinical auditing is essential for improving the quality of services, and as we mark clinical audit awareness week, we encourage people to use the CSP audit tool and especially its shared decision-making function, which plays a pivotal role in patients receiving high quality, joined up care.’ 

Read the Standards and download the MSK Physiotherapy Service Standards audit tool and supportive resources here.