Clinical Governance

Clinical Governance is based on the principle that all of us, clinicians and managers alike, are jointly accountable for quality of patient care and standards of care delivery. Clinical Governance is the framework by which this accountability is ensured and demonstrated.

Ensuring patient safety and quality of care is important to health care professionals, patients and the community and there are growing expectations that accountability for the safe delivery of health services will be openly demonstrated.  Our current understanding, which is still relatively recent, is that addressing systems issues is the primary basis of achieving quality improvement. Today, quality and patient safety is managed, monitored and evaluated by creating an environment that promotes use of best evidence in patient care and encourages data-based decision-making; by having robust systems to identify incidents and risks; by monitoring, evaluating and reporting on health and quality outcomes; and by encouraging patients, carers and staff to provide feedback on their care and input into the quality and safety agenda.

The components of the HNE Health Clinical Governance framework are broad, and include Clinical Effectiveness, Clinical Ethics, Patient Safety and Incident Reporting, Executive Support Service (including Compliments and Complaints Management), Clinical Audit, Clinical Risk Management, Patient Satisfaction and Experience, Introduction of New Procedures/Clinical Innovations, Policy and Guideline Development and Management, Quality Improvement and Safety Alerts. Specific clinical areas of activity include Infection Prevention and Control, Quality Use of Medicines, Patient Identification and Correct Site Procedures, and Clinical Communication.

Clinical Governance is one of the Hunter New England Health Executive portfolios. The Director Clinical Governance reports to the Chief Executive and is an Executive Team member. Hunter New England Health Clinical Governance works in collaboration with other Local Health Districts’ Clinical Governance units, the NSW Health Quality Safety and Governance Branch and the Clinical Excellence Commission.

This home page and the pages supporting it have been developed around key themes and provide links to other documents and sites that may be of use or interest in relation to quality and patient safety. We hope that you find it helpful, interesting and informative. The website is reviewed annually but is still in its formative stages, so we are interested in receiving your feedback about it, today and in the future.