Clinical governance has been described as "a framework through which NHS organisations are accountable for continually improving the quality of their services and safeguarding high standards of care by creating an environment in which excellence in clinical care will flourish,"
G Scally and L J Donaldson, BMJ (4 July 1998).
Learning to Improve
There is now an online educational resource available to help you use clinical governance and risk management quality in your work. The website acts as a:
- Programme of learning
- Reference source
- Training resource
This valuable resource is available at www.clinicalgovernance.scot.nhs.uk/
The background to Clinical Governance
Clinical governance lies at the heart of all healthcare services, and over the last seven years has become embedded throughout NHSScotland. It involves ensuring that quality assurance, quality improvement and patient safety are part of the everyday routines and practices of every organisation and every team that provides healthcare.
In 2003, NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS) was tasked by the Scottish Executive Health Department with supporting the implementation of clinical governance across NHSScotland.
In response, NHS QIS has established a Clinical Governance and Patient Safety Support Unit (CGPSSU) to take forward support for this important area of work. As part of this development, a Clinical Governance and Patient Safety Support Team was created (March - September 2004) to carry out the groundwork that would inform both the strategic direction and work programme for the newly established Unit.
The team has undertaken three key pieces of work that will underpin the future work programme of the Unit:
- ARC Risk Management Report
- Clinical governance development day for non-executive director and chairs of clinical governance committees
- Clinical governance scoping exercise
The information from each of these pieces of work has been used to develop the work programme for the Unit which focuses on two work streams:
What's new
Training and Education of Clinical Governance Staff - Report (Word, 339K, 1min 36secs)
About the report
In August 2005 the Clinical Governance and Patient Safety Support Unit allocated a major part of its budget ( 121k) to NHS Boards to fund training and education of clinical governance staff. NHS Boards were asked to provide a brief account of how this allocation was used and a summary of the responses is provided in this report. This information will be used to continue to support the work undertaken by NHS QIS in relation to providing support for training and education of clinical governance staff at a national level.
About this report
In October 2005, NHS Boards were asked to provide reassurance that arrangements were in place locally in line with the recommendations contained within this alert. The report contains detailed information on Board s progress towards implementing the recommendations.
Safe Today Safer Tomorrow: Action Plan (PDF, 94K, 26secs)
About this report
NHS QIS is committed to acting on the recommendations contained within the review of incident and near-miss reporting, issued in January 2006. Following consultation on the draft action plan in June 2006 the finalised action plan has been produced in response to this study. This will form an important part of the revised Clinical Governance and Patient Safety Support Unit work programme.