Clinical audit in farm animal veterinary practice

This article, the first in a two‐part series providing practical advice for practitioners on carrying out clinical audits, discusses the preparation and initiation of clinical audit in farm animal practice. In the second article, to be published in a subsequent issue of In Practice, the stages of data collection, analysis and re‐audit will be discussed along with some of the facilitators and barriers to conducting clinical audit. Both articles are based on findings from a three‐year research project looking at the use of clinical audit in farm animal practice. The research included conducting audits using information already in existence in the practice setting, and audits focused on actively collecting information over a period of time in three farm animal practices, and a nationwide survey on the experiences and attitudes of farm animal veterinary surgeons towards clinical audit in the UK.