Clinical governance

Clinical governance has been defined as a system through which 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 care will flourish.

What does clinical governance mean at Brook?

At Brook we want to provide high quality, clinically excellent services that are responsive to the needs of young people. Clinical governance creates the framework for monitoring how well we are meeting that goal and identifying where and how we could improve. The key components of our framework are:

Clinical governance accountability

A clinical accountability spine runs from the front line through to the Board of Trustees.

All clinical staff have a role to play in improving the quality of the services they deliver. Nurse Managers in each service are responsible for compliance with clinical governance processes and maintaining best practice. The national Clinical Leadership Team (CLT) ensures that our clinical governance is robust, and fosters an ethos of continuous improvement. The CLT provides regular reports to the Executive Team on clinical quality and our Clinical Advisory Group meets four times a year to assure the Board of Trustees that clinical governance structures are operating effectively.

Clinical audit and quality improvement
Clinical audit measures the effectiveness of healthcare against agreed and proven standards for quality and by taking action to bring practice in line with these standards improves the quality of care and health outcomes.
Brook has pioneered the use of Google forms to carry out clinical audit. All Brook services actively participate in six organisation-wide audits each year. Audit criteria are based on recognised standards for quality set by the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, (FSRH) British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) and Infection Control Nurses Association. Read more about the results of our audit programme.

Risk management
Clinical risk management is a key component of Brook’s approach to improving the quality and safety of care for clients. We act on findings from risk management and incident reporting processes to prevent future occurrences. 

Risks within services are reported upwards to the Executive Team and may be escalated to the strategic risk register, and reported to our Risk, Finance and Assurance Committee, depending on the severity of the risk.

Evidence based healthcare

Healthcare should be based on reliable and relevant evidence, determined by sound scientific research and evaluation. At Brook our services are delivered according to recognised best practice guidance such as that published by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare and British Association of Sexual Health and HIV.

Staff support and development
We aim to support and develop our staff and managers so that they have the skills and support they need to provide high quality services to young people.

Client and staff experience
We undertake two national surveys each year to establish levels of client satisfaction with Brook services. View the survey results.

All our services have local feedback mechanisms and carry out exit surveys with clients. We respond to clients using ‘You Said, We Did’ boards in waiting areas.

Our annual staff survey incorporates questions designed to gather staff views on the quality of the service they deliver to young people. Read the results from the staff feedback survey.

Page updated: February 2016
Next review due: February 2017