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Every surgical activity poses some element of risk to the public and should include a quality control initiative. Surgical audit is one strategy used to maintain and/or improve standards in surgical care. The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons is committed to ensuring best practice in surgical care and strongly endorses the use of audits to achieve this. This review provides an overview of clinical audit and its role in surgical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian Safety and Efficacy Register for New Interventional Procedures - Surgical (ASERNIP-S) undertakes horizon scanning, systematic reviews and audits. By disseminating information derived from these processes, ASERNIP-S aims to improve the quality of health care. In the present article, we discuss some of the legal and ethical issues surrounding the collection of identified data for the purposes of audit. The individual's right to privacy is considered as well as the benefits of improving the quality of surgical health care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]