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The purpose of this paper is to assess nursing staff perceptions regarding the clinical audit tool used for relicensing inspections within private hospitals in eThekwini district.

An exploratory sequential mixed method research design was used with a qualitative first phase involving a total population of 40 nurse managers through purposive sampling. Nurse managers (n=24) were interviewed. This was followed by a quantitative phase in which a structured questionnaire was administered to nurses (n=270) who were randomly sampled for the study from (n=4) hospitals. Documentation review, a third phase was used to corroborate the findings of the first two phases of the study.

The results of the study showed that the participants perceptions of the selected private hospitals in eThekwini district is that they have not fully implemented the approach to practice standards and healthcare audits in relation to three clinical domains of the National Core Standards and the Batho Pele principles. These findings were significant and denoted the need for a standardised clinical audit tool for private hospitals in eThekwini district.

This study was confined to an independent group of hospitals and the findings may not be suitable for generalising across all private hospitals in eThekwini district.

These findings led to the development of a clinical audit tool with measurements representing elements of care that are critical to the provision of safe, quality health care services.