Practical proposals for corrective measures must be made to the hospital management. These must be endorsed by all participants in the audit. The presentation should identify both positive and negative findings of the audit, since sharing examples of good practice may contribute as much to improving quality as does the identification of inadequate practice. The improvements expected from carrying out the action plan should be described as accurately as possible. The improvement action plan should be finalised and approved by the project team, the audited team and the hospital management during or shortly after this presentation.

The Audit report

The final report should present the overall project and should include the following sections:

• Objectives
• Participants (Project team, Audited teams)
• Organisation and methodology
• Frame of reference and timeline from planning to report
• Both positive findings and issues requiring improvement
• Agreed action plan for improvement
• Annexes (documents used, e.g. audit protocol, user manual, reference sources)

Publication in the professional literature may add greatly to the value of the audit, for the participants, the hospital and the wider professional community.