Background to the Inquiry
As part of the inquiry into the culture of the NHS in Scotland, the Committee agreed to look at clinical governance.
Clinical governance refers to the systems through which NHS organisations are accountable for continuously monitoring and improving the quality of their care and services, and ensuring they safeguard high standards.
A guidance booklet to NHS non-executive directors explains that effective clinical governance should provide assurances that:
- Quality of care, effectiveness and efficiency drives decision making about the planning, provision, organisation and management of services;
- The planning and delivery of services take full account of the perspective of patients and service users;
- Unacceptable clinical and care practice will be detected and addressed.
Healthcare Improvement Scotland has a key role in overseeing good clinical governance in the NHS and produced standards for Clinical Governance and Risk Management in 2005. NHS Boards are responsible for implementing the standards.
What information is the Committee looking for?
Responses are invited on the following questions:
- Are services safe, effective, and evidence-based?
- Are patient and service users’ perspectives taken into account in the planning and delivery of services?
- Do services treat people with dignity and respect?
- Are staff and the public confident about the safety and quality of NHS services?
- Do quality of care, effectiveness and efficiency drive decision making in the NHS?
- Are the correct systems in place to detect unacceptable quality of care and act appropriately when things go wrong?
How to submit your evidence
Please send your submission no later than Wednesday 9 August 2017.
Responses should be sent, wherever possible, electronically and in MS Word format to: [email protected]
Hard-copy responses may be sent to: Health and Sport Committee, T3.60, Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh EH99 1SP
Responses should be no more than four sides of A4 in length.
Before making a submission, please read our Policy on Treatment of Written Evidence by Subject and Mandatory Committees.
Our normal practice is to publish all relevant evidence that is sent to us on our website and we may also include it in the hard copy of any committee report. Therefore, if you wish your evidence to be treated as confidential, or for your evidence to be published anonymously, please contact the Clerk to the Committee, before you submit your evidence.
Please note that the Parliament is covered by the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. This also affects the way that we deal with your evidence.
In particular you should be aware that if we receive a request for information under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, we may be required legally to release the information to the person who has made the request – even where the relevant committee has agreed to treat all or part of the information in confidence or publish it anonymously.
So, in the circumstances outlined above, while we can assure you that your document / name will not be circulated to the general public in the context of the relevant committee’s current work, we are unable to give you a guarantee that the full document will never be released.
Contact
Should you require alternative formats of this information or further assistance in making a written submission to the Committee, please do not hesitate to contact the clerking team of the Committee.
For Committee information, contact: Rebecca Macfie, tel 0131 348 5247, email: [email protected]
For further information, the media contact is: Myer Cohen, tel 0131 348 6085 email: [email protected]