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Clinical Audit Toolkit

The HSE National Centre for Clinical Audit (NCCA) Clinical Audit Toolkit brings together the essential documents and resources to support best practice in clinical audit. It helps healthcare organisations establish the governance structures recommended in the HSE National Review of Clinical Audit (2019).

Clinical audit is a key component of quality improvement. It helps teams measure current practice against evidence‑based standards. It can help you to make the changes that improve patient care and the quality and safety of our services.

Key documents

NCCA Practical Guide to Clinical Audit (2025)

The Practical Guide to Clinical Audit provides a step‑by‑step framework for planning, conducting and completing a clinical audit.

It outlines the:

  • principles of good audit practice
  • recommended methodologies
  • clinical audit lifecycle - from selecting your topic through to re‑audit.

HSE NCCA Clinical Audit Practical Guide 2025 (PDF, 4 MB, 76 pages)

NCCA Nomenclature - A Glossary of Terms for Clinical Audit (2025)

The Nomenclature provides standardised language and clear definitions to enable consistency and accuracy throughout the clinical audit process.

National Centre for Clinical Audit Nomenclature - Glossary of Terms for Clinical Audit (PDF, 800 KB, 12 pages)

Data Protection and GDPR - FAQs for Clinical Audit (2024)

This provides practical guidance to help audit teams meet data protection requirements when collecting, using and storing patient information.

Data Protection and GDPR FAQ’s for Clinical Audit (PDF, 1.29 MB, 17 pages)

Clinical Audit and Part 6 of the Patient Safety Act 2023

Specific guidance to help staff understand how Part 6 of the Patient Safety (Notifiable Incidents and Open Disclosure) Act 2023 relates to clinical audit.

HSE National Centre for Clinical Audit (NCCA) information for the Patient Safety Act (PDF, 2 pages, 488 KB)

Quality Improvement Tools

You can use the HSE Quality Improvement Guide and Toolkit to help with the Quality Improvement stage of clinical audit

HSE Quality Improvement Guide and Toolkit 2024.

Contribute to the toolkit

The HSE National Centre for Clinical Audit is committed to further development of this toolkit. If you have any clinical audit resources or tools that you would like to contribute to this page, please email ncca@hse.ie.