Is audit running out of steam?

Richard Thomson has research interests in quality in health care and health services research. He previously headed the Northern Regional Health Authority's multidisciplinary quality directorate with responsibility for facilitating audit and quality assurance activities across the region. He has contributed to several national groups concerned with influencing policy on audit, including that at the purchaser-provider interface, and he is a member of the regional medical audit committee and chairman of the regional public health medicine audit promotion group. Andrew Barton 's principal responsibility is organising postqualification training in audit for doctors and the professions allied to medicine and advising on the design and management of projects across all specialties. He is researching into the effectiveness ofguidelines in audit and the cost of implementing guidelines. A member of the North Tyneside Medical Audit Advisory Group, he is starting to assess the effectiveness of these groups in general.