Clinical Governance
Clinical Governance can be defined as a framework through which NHS organisations are accountable for continuously improving the quality of their services and safeguarding high standards of care by creating an environment in which excellence in clinical care will flourish.
Every NHS Trust needs to ensure that there is emphasis on providing a quality service. Effective clinical governance should ensure:
continuous improvement of patient services and care by means of a patient centred approach that includes treating patients courteously, involving them in decisions about their care and keeping them informed.
a commitment to quality, which ensures that health professionals are up to date in their practices and properly supervised where necessary.
a reduction of the risk from clinical errors and adverse events as well as a commitment to learn from mistakes and share that learning with others.
The Care Quality Commission
A new system of registration for health and adult social care is being introduced in 2010. All providers, including NHS Trusts, need to ensure that they are meeting essential standards of quality and safety to meet new regulations set out in The Health and Social Care Act 2008. These replace Standards for Better Health in April 2010. The new system places the views and experiences of people who use services at the centre. These new quality and safety standards do not replace the need for providers of healthcare to continue to have robust systems of clinical governance in place, however there are links between the two. The standards fall under the following key areas:
Involvement and information
Personalised care, treatment and support
Safeguarding and safety
Suitability of staffing
Quality and management
The Care Quality Commission state that the new registration system will improve health and adult social care in the following ways:
People can expect services to meet essential standards of quality and safety that respect their dignity and protect their rights, wherever care is provided - in someone's home, in a community setting, in a hospital; however it is funded (private or public); and whether it is acute care or longer residential care - it will have a single set of standards of quality and safety.
A single set of standards will make it easier for one provider to be compared to another and for providers to work together.
It marks a change from regulation primarily based on systems and processes to regulation primarily based on outcomes - the experiences people have as a result of the care they receive.
We will continuously monitor compliance with essential standards as part of a more dynamic, responsive, robust system of regulation accompanied by new enforcement powers.
We will make better use of the information we have about providers, including constantly updated information from providers, people who use services, organisations and other regulators.
We will have short, focussed unannounced site visits, with direct observation of care, rather than set piece inspections that require a great deal of preparation
For more information about the Care Quality Commission go to www.cqc.org.uk
