CONTINUED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT (CPD)

The educational importance of audit in CPD has been extolled by the Royal Colleges^{15 16} . Regular review of patient management will improve the standard of care, and reduce morbidity and mortality. In particular, this is true where current practice can be compared with specific guidelines. Surgery is well versed in this area, but peer review audit of endoscopic practice is uncommon in the United Kingdom.

Using data from the individual patient questionnaires, no answer was given in 458 cases. Therefore of the 1,360 cases, 78% (1,063/1,360) of procedures were performed in hospitals that held endoscopy audit meetings which correlates well with the figure above. However only 26% (359/1,360) of cases had been reviewed at an audit meeting (Figure 8).

Figure 8. Morbidity and mortality audit

In 20% (197/1,001) of cases the person completing the questionnaire answered that the case would be reviewed at an audit meeting in the future. Overall a maximum of a third of
all deaths following therapeutic endoscopy would have been subject to review.

Audit is important for personal continuing professional development and for the improvement of endoscopy services within a Trust. All endoscopy units should run regular audit meetings within their clinical governance activities. A review of all deaths following endoscopy should be part of the programme for such audit meetings