Audit and quality improvement appear on nearly every NHS person specification we read, sometimes as essential and usually as desirable, from foundation posts through to consultant appointments. They also produce the weakest writing on the average medical CV, because doctors record that the activity happened and stop there.
A one-line entry proves attendance. What a reader is trying to establish is whether you understand the method and what you personally contributed, and neither of those is visible in "completed an audit".
The five things a complete entry states
The standard you audited against. Audit is measurement against an agreed standard, so name it. Local trust guidance, a NICE guideline, a royal college standard. This one detail does more than any other to show you know what audit is, and it is the one most often missing.
What you measured and how much of it. Sample size, time period, setting. "Sixty consecutive admissions over eight weeks" is worth more than "a number of patients".
What you personally did. This matters most and gets stated least. Were you the one who designed it, collected the data, analysed it, presented it, wrote the protocol? On a team project, say which part was yours. Vagueness here reads as though you were a name on a list, which may be unfair to you.
What you found. The actual result, with the number. Compliance was 54 per cent against a standard of 95. A finding is a fact and facts are more persuasive than adjectives.
What happened next. Presented at a departmental meeting, changed the admission proforma, fed into a guideline revision. If you re-audited, this is where the entry becomes strong, because a closed loop is the thing everybody claims to value and few candidates can actually evidence.
When the loop was never closed
Most audits do not get re-audited. Rotations end, people move, the project stops. This is normal and you should not manufacture an ending for it.
Write what happened and stop: "Findings presented to the department in March 2025; a repeat cycle was planned but I rotated before it was completed." That sentence is honest, it shows you know a cycle should close, and it is stronger than a vague claim of improvement that you cannot support. Do not write that practice improved unless you measured that practice improved.
We turn down requests to add outcomes to audit entries fairly regularly, and this is the most common one.
Audit and QI are not the same thing
Audit measures practice against an existing standard. Quality improvement tests changes to a process, usually iteratively, often with a recognised method and measurement over time. Some person specifications ask for one, some for the other, some for both.
If your project was a QI project, describe it as one and say what you changed and how you measured the effect. If it was an audit, call it an audit. Labelling an audit as QI to sound more current is transparent to anyone who reads these documents regularly, and it costs credibility on the rest of the section.
How much space to give it
Three or four lines for a project you led. One or two for one you contributed to. Two well-written entries beat six thin ones, and if you have a long list of minor involvements, consider whether the weakest three are earning their space.
Put the strongest project first. The reader may not get to the bottom.
A worked comparison
Before: "Did an audit on antibiotic prescribing."
After: "Audit of antibiotic prescribing against trust antimicrobial guidance, 60 consecutive medical admissions over eight weeks. I designed the data collection and analysed the results. Documented indication was present in 54 per cent of cases against a standard of 95 per cent. Presented at the departmental governance meeting in March 2025, where the findings informed a revision of the admission proforma."
Same project. Same facts. Nothing added that did not happen.
This is guidance on writing a CV. It is not clinical, governance or careers advice.