Clinical audit: addressing ethical concerns

Clinical audits carried out in an individual practice for the purpose of quality improvement will not normally raise ethical issues or require formal ethics approval. However, because many aspects of veterinary practice have ethical implications and because the process of data collection in clinical audit may look similar to aspects of practice-based clinical veterinary research, it is important to understand the ethical issues that could arise in order to provide appropriate protection to practice team members, clients and their animals.

This document explores:

• The different between clinical audit and clinical veterinary research
• Ethical considerations for clinical audits
• How to respond to critical events
• Scenarios that demonstrate the different types of clinical audit and clinical veterinary research.

This document was last updated in February 2024.

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