Multidisciplinary audit in child and adolescent psychiatry

Recent guidelines recommend that where appro priate, procedures for the development of audit in medicine and professions allied to medicine can be replaced by comprehensive multidisciplinary audit of services. The Royal College of Psychiatrists (1990) suggests that clinical audit, involving the work of other staffin the multidisciplinary team, is preferable to purely medical audit. Given the importance of team work in child psychiatry, it seems appropriate to establish a system of audit which enables all disciplines to be involved. The potential advantages of this approach are considerable (Pearce, 1990). They include an ac knowledgement of the work of all the team members, an improvement in the understanding of the contri butions of different disciplines, and the development of a greater sense of cohesion in the team as a whole. In addition to ensuring a high level of patient care, many professional bodies have emphasised the value '