Clinical governance is not about compliance.

High-performing health services achieve great outcomes by taking actions that go beyond compliance. These include:

• a vision for the future: the clear intention for how the service might be in the future We looked at this in Module 3.
• continual learning and improvement – health service staff are provided with opportunities and encouragement to further their skill set and qualifications
• quality improvement – established methods and data are used to drive and design actions to improve safety and quality. A key element of the Clinical Governance Standard is to continuously improve services; we looked at this in Module 1.

Despite everyone’s best intentions and attempts to ensure great patient care, sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes something is missed and a patient is harmed.

Sometimes a health professional or operational staff member takes their eye off the ball and something occurs that isn’t in the best interest of the patient, the practice or the community. This is where good governance steps in.

Having a Clinical Governance Improvement Program means that the practice can admit the problems and their causes, work to remedy them and ensure that they aren’t repeated.

Tough conversations are often needed, changes to practice required and a level of self-reflection that can be uncomfortable for some people. However, within the structure of a Clinical Governance Improvement Program, we know that the individual practice and the broader system will be better positioned to meet the needs of the patients in the future.

And, put simply, it builds trust in health professionals, our practices and the broader system by individual patients, their families and the broader community. Trust that is much needed following waves of disinformation throughout the Global Pandemic and the proliferation of social media information that is not evidence-based.

Having good clinical governance, including a way to identify and fix problems, works to ensure the ongoing improvement of the healthcare system in Australia at both a localised and national level.