ABSTRACT
Psychological treatment services are in a slightly different position, from that of the medical profession in general, where quality improvement is concerned. As with the medical profession, there are traditional means of ensuring quality of care, such as established methods of training, supervision, undertaking research, and conferences. Clinical audit involves evaluating practice against pre-set standards. While standards can be derived from various areas, such as ethics, consumer demands, and so on, they ought largely to be derived from good quality research evidence indicating what best practice is in terms of outcomes and cost. Change and monitoring also occur in psychological treatment services through mechanisms such as local clinical audit, as well as national audits, such as the national Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services audit. Routine data collection and outcome monitoring is also fairly standard now in services, again not without controversy where psychological treatments are concerned.
