Doctor preparing an audit example for NHS interview
Interview Preparation, Understanding the Process

Podcast: How to Answer Audit Questions in Your NHS Consultant Interview

Audit and QI questions are some of the most common-and often most intimidating-parts of an NHS Consultant interview. In this podcast snippet, Becky Platt and Tessa Davis explain why this question appears so frequently, how to prepare a strong example, and how to structure your answer in a way that shows leadership, clarity and measurable impact.

 

 

The Conversation: How to Answer Audit Questions

Listen to the full episode:

Audit Question Breakdown

Tessa Davis: Tell me about a time that you were involved in an audit.

Becky Platt: This comes up fairly commonly. In fact, when we did a breakdown of all the questions we’ve had from the over one thousand people who have gone through the academy, we found that a version of this question comes up in around 40% of interviews. Sometimes it’s about QI rather than audit, but it’s definitely a common question.

Tessa Davis: So what do you think is the best way to approach it?

Becky Platt: Hopefully in your preparation, you will already have chosen an example of an audit you’ve been involved in. This might even be one of your unique selling points that you plan to weave into different answers during your interview.

So this example should be ready to use when the panel asks about audits. I usually suggest breaking these questions into three sections so you can give both breadth and depth. A simple structure is:

  • How you identified the problem 
  • How you collected the data 
  • What the outcomes and impact were 

Then you can talk through each of those clearly.

Tessa Davis: Does that sound reasonable to you?

Becky Platt: Yes, I think so. A lot of people feel like their audit isn’t special, everyone does an audit because it’s part of training. But what you’re trying to do is highlight what you did well.

The data is really important. It’s the difference between saying, “I did an audit on pain scores in ED,” and saying, “I led a team of four people collecting baseline data on 100 patients, found that only 20% were receiving pain scores, implemented X, Y, and Z, and then re-audited another 100 patients a few months later and saw improvement from 20% to 80%.”

Even if you haven’t completed a second audit cycle or it wasn’t a QI project, adding in data makes a huge difference in how it comes across to the panel.

People often know the details of their project in their heads, but the panel doesn’t. Unless you give specifics, they’ll imagine whatever audit they last did. Adding data and outcomes helps make your story clear and impactful.

This type of question is also a great opportunity to demonstrate leadership, setting directives, prioritising timelines, holding people accountable, and supporting junior colleagues to get involved. There’s a lot you can demonstrate even if your audit topic isn’t unique.

It doesn’t need to be unique; it just needs to show what you developed and what you bring to a team as a result. And it doesn’t need to relate to the specialty you’re applying for, the skills of audit are transferable.

Even older audits or audits from another specialty can be great examples if the skills you demonstrated were strong.

Tessa Davis: I also think this kind of project can be used in different ways. Even though we’re talking about a specific audit question, the themes you mentioned – leadership, teamwork, managing change, conflict, can be brought into other interview questions.

When you’ve thought through your project in detail, you can adapt it to many different questions.

Becky Platt: Exactly. For example, if you get a question about conflict with a colleague, you could say, “When I was doing my audit on pain management, I had a conflict because we had agreed on certain roles and they weren’t delivering. I addressed this by doing X and Y.”

That allows you to answer the conflict question while also reminding the panel of the impact of your audit.

Tessa Davis: Yes, and this is definitely worth practising because something around audit or QI is very likely to come up. It’s usually a broad question, so choose whichever example is your strongest and be ready to use it in your interview.

 

Key Takeaways

Audit and QI questions might feel routine, but they give you a rich opportunity to show leadership, analytical thinking, teamwork and impact. The key is choosing a strong example and delivering it with structure and clarity.

 

Top Tips From the Podcast

  • Prepare one strong audit example in advance. 
  • Use a simple structure: problem → data → impact. 
  • Include numbers and measurable outcomes wherever possible. 
  • Use the example to showcase leadership, conflict management and teamwork. 
  • Repurpose the same example across multiple interview questions. 

Older audits or unrelated specialties are fine if the skills demonstrated were strong.