Presentation by: Mike Goulding & Ned Cooke
Conference: International Conference on Gambling
Date: September 2006
Title: An audit to look forward to? A mentored audit and outcome assessment in a Pacific service.
Abstract:
The term clinical audit has a tendency to inspire fear and a rush of preparation to ensure everything is completed before the auditors arrive. This is particularly the case when the service to be audited is new and unclear as to what the benchmarks are. It is even more complex when the service has a different cultural focus and approach and processes are consequently different.

In New Zealand a mentored audit and outcome assessment of a Pacific service has been designed and implemented. It has been designed as a model to mentor the providers to meet the standards raised by the audit with a supportive and developmental approach rather than simply auditing past service provision. It is an opportunity to set up organisations to succeed with a culture of best practise developed rather than the feeling that there is a need to meet many administrative requirements for funding that are peripheral to service delivery. There is also an opportunity from the outset to demonstrate outcomes of the service and relate these from the start to audit compliance.

The model designed will be outlined, with the emphasis on how implementation can be specifically tailored for ethnic specific and newly emerging services, with the experience of working in partnership with clients being mirrored by the audit process.