[Care of the Critically Ill Child]

By

Acknowledgement

This research would not have been possible without the support of my research supervisor and my teacher so I would like to thank them for their help.



Chapter 2: Clinical Governance

Clinical governance

The system for improving the clinical practice is called the clinical governance. Initially this term was used as a new system in NHS trust and primary care to make sure that the standards are met properly and there is continuous improvement in processes of clinics. It has been predicted that the new framework is emerging and it is expected that quality will improve in the coming future. The activities like clinical audit, education and training, r&d and risk management will soon be a part of clinical governance in the future and their resources will fund it. The senior clinician is considered the most responsible person in all organization. Quality maintenance is the responsibility of chief executive.

Hence we can conclude that a powerful, new and comprehensive system for maintaining high quality in clinics is called clinical governance.

The elements of clinical governance

There are six basic elements of clinical governance which are as follow

Education

Clinical audit

Clinical effectiveness

Risk management

Research and development

Openness

Education

All clinician can now continue their education to learn more about their field. It is because the medical science is continuously updating new methods and the knowledge of the clinicians become outdated quickly. To keep themselves updated they continuously learn new things and gain knowledge so that they are developed professionally. Furthermore, it is a rule that a fixed period of postgraduate study must be done by specialist. The example of pharmacists, physiotherapists and occupational therapists can be in this context. This education program emphasizes more on individual practitioner and not on group of practitioners.

Clinical audit

The review of clinical performance with the refining of clinical practice is called clinical performance. Clinical audit has been a part of good clinical practices for years and years and it is one of the most important policies of NHS to participate in clinical audit too. it should be noted that the participation is only encouraged in primary care. The trained staff and committees of nhs facilitate the audit in the primary care. Clinical audit was called medical prerogative but now with the time a trend of involving patients, medical supervisor and managers is also seen. The clinical audit is different everywhere and it depends on the status given by health authorities and NHS trust. It has become difficult to continue the clinical audit program due to management cost pressures.

Clinical effectiveness

The measure of the extent to which a strategy works is called clinical effectiveness. This strategy is pretty useful but it has some drawbacks too. One of them include that clinical effectiveness is improved by taking in to consideration if the strategy is good. In modern health service, the safety of patient and his carer must also be considered as well.

Risk management

Health care is a risky business as it involves big time risk to patients, to practitioner and to the ...