GOVERNANCE

Clinical Governance

Eastbourne Healthcare Partnership Limited (EHPL) believes that clinical audit is at the heart of clinical governance. It provides the mechanisms for reviewing the quality of everyday care provided to patients with medical conditions. It builds on a long history of healthcare professionals reviewing patient notes and care pathways and seeking ways to serve their patients better by implementing revised patient pathways, seeking the patient’s views and informed choice empowering the patients and placing the patient at the centre of the care plan. It addresses quality issues systematically and explicitly, providing reliable information. It can confirm the quality of clinical services and highlight the need for improvement.

Clinical governance underpins Eastbourne Healthcare Partnerships organisational approach to provide quality services that integrates the perspectives of staff, patients and the people that care for individuals, and the Clinical Commissioning Organisation managing our health service. Change in complex healthcare systems cannot be brought about simply by the analysis of data that indicate that care might be less than perfect, clinical audit requires a comprehensive and cohesive effort to contribute, listen and implement.

As part of our commitment in providing quality healthcare we undertake a systematic review in order to improve patient care and outcomes. Included in this review we include information gathered from patient satisfaction surveys and complaints. We undertake to implement change and review processes in order to improve the patient experience measuring care against criteria, taking action to improve care, and monitoring to sustain improvement.

The benefits of clinical audit are that it:

• Identifies and promotes good practice that can lead to improvements in service delivery and outcomes for users
• Can provide the information needed to demonstrate to others that the service is effective (and cost-effective) and thus ensure its development.
• Provides opportunities for training and education.
• Helps to ensure better use of resources and, therefore, increased efficiency.
• Can improve working relationships, communication and liaison between staff and service users, and between agencies.
• The overarching aim of clinical audit is to improve service user outcomes by improving professional practice