The ward on which I work consists of 33 single rooms and is divided according to specialty - orthopaedic or surgical. There is a separate nursing team for each specialty. At the time of the audit (October 1999) there were eight nursing shift patterns in operation. It was common for nurses to give at least two verbal handovers each shift at the bedside. This was very time-consuming. Moreover, information was often poorly communicated and inaccurate due to omission of detail. For this reason we decided to conduct an audit of nursing handover on the ward.