Internal audit during COVID-19 restrictions

Hello,

With all the COVID-19 situation and restrictions, we postponed our internal audits booked to happen until now. However, given the circumstances and that this situation might still continue, I wanted to find out what the rest of you are doing in this respect.

Obviously, we have a documented approved concession for the postponement, but I am not sure if we will restart to work on a full capacity until the end of the year and I am trying to find the best way to move forward.

Best wishes,
Laura
 

Sidney Vianna

Post Responsibly
Leader
Admin
and I am trying to find the best way to move forward.
Haven't you re-thought your internal audit schedule, based on the current context? The planning for internal audits is a dynamic thing and organizations should take into account what is happening, inside and outside and consider risks to accelerate internal audits of critical areas (under the new context of a pandemia) and making educated decisions not to audit certain processes.

Have you considered "remote" internal audits done, without face to face interaction?

And, finally, according to some, one can audit their own work... oh the :sarcasm:
 
Of course, we re-thought our schedule and update it, but we just delayed all IA`s with 4 months and they suppose to restart in July. Given the continuous restrictions, I wouldn`t be comfortable continuing to delay them, as activities will become overcrowded towards the end of the year.

Yes, we considered remote internal audits, desktop base ones and wanted to see how others are handling this situation and what were the obstacles you encountered.

Well, I don`t really agree that you can audit your own work, how could you be objective and impartial. Anyway, gladly that`s not our situation :).
 

Randy

Super Moderator
Have you totally shut down operations? If not you may need to rethink and look inward. I just did an annual surveillance for one of the largest blood & tissues centers in the country, they've got bio-labs and everything else where they process from donors across the country, are one of the focal points for providing convalescent plasma in the Covid-19 fight and all they did was shuffle some audit dates around and slightly modify their audit schedule/process.
 
Not everything is shut down. Most of the people are working from home (the ones that don`t need to be physically present), and some people are going to work as they are performing some specific activities, but keeping the recommended distance and precautions.

I will have to rethink the IA schedule and change it based on activities that are still ongoing. Although we still need to cover the other aspects towards the end of the year to prove that our QMS is effective.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
 

Tagin

Trusted Information Resource
We are a small company that uses a third-party consultant for our internal audits. We did a remote internal audit. It went well, and recently had our 9001 surveillance audit via remote, and that also went well.

The internal audit should look at how the organization is dealing with COVID-19: risk assessment, planning, business impact, IT security (with all those remote workers), etc.

This thread may be useful for considering the impact of COVID-19 on the QMS: Documented actions and changes in the QMS by COVID 19
 
Top Bottom