I have maybe a strange question. What is an audit?

I have maybe a strange question. What is an audit? I’ve come across this term several times when researching the possibility of working in the UK and I’m having a feeling it means something else than in my language. Here in Czechia an audit is a process of checking documentation to see if everything is done properly (like financial documents at a company). What does it mean in the UK?
To some degree it means the same. An audit is a process through which you evaluate standards of care, pathways, etc. against what’s being done in your own hospital. For example, there is a protocol for thromboprophylaxis. You can compare this to what’s being done in your hospital within a time frame.
It depends on what’s being evaluated— whether it’s a procedure or something documented. They can compare documentation vs. what guidelines recommend. It’s an essential part of training to do this, so every doctor has done one in the U.K. It can be really simple or complex depending on what’s being evaluated.a simple example would be… say the standard of care is to do a VTE assessment within say 24 hours of patient admission. An audit can be done to see if this is actually done and to what extent.
So its basically comparing what the hospital is supposed to do against what its actually doing The audit you’re talking about is Financial Audit. In clinical practice, there is Clinical Audit. The way accountants use Audits to check financial flaws, Clinicians do Clinical Audits to check clinical flaws. NHS gives it so much importance because it’s one of the most important tools to evaluate the quality of healthcare and is very useful to maintain and improve the quality.
P.S. I will soon discuss how to conduct a simple Audit. Or maybe I will do a hands-on workshop. Stay tuned