The Result of COVID-19 on Internal Audit in the Portuguese

The aim of this study is to analyse how Covid 19 affected the work of internal audit in Portuguese hospitals and to understand the perception of auditors of hospital institutions in the Portuguese National Health Service (NHS) regarding the impact of the pandemic on their activity.The methodology adopted for this study was carried out through questionnaires and interviews. Information was also collected regarding the perceived changes in the nature of Internal Auditing work, the work stages, the services performed and the Information Technologies used, as well as the impact of teleworking on the performance of functions and the consequences that are expected to remain in the future.Practical implications - The results showed that most professionals considered that COVID-19 had a high impact on Hospital Internal Auditing. It was also found that most respondents are of the opinion that the pandemic has decreased the contribution of the activity to the organisation, essentially due to the difficulty in establishing contact with other Services of the hospital and due to remote work.