Clinical governance and patient safety

One of our key functions is to directly promote patient safety. We do this by supporting clinical governance in every health board. Clinical governance is a system of checks and balances that ensure clinical services are of the highest possible quality.

 

“Sometimes things can and do go wrong. We will help our hard working NHS staff to minimise any unintentional harm caused during clinical care. This will save lives and further improve patient care.”

Each NHS board has been reviewed against our clinical governance and risk management standards. These reviews led to local reports, and a national overview report will follow later this year. Continuing improvement against these standards is one of the key targets the Scottish Executive has set for NHS boards.

33,000 patients acquire an infection during treatment

Our Healthcare Associated Infections (HAI) standards, originally written in 2001, are under review. Our standards work on the basis that the prevention and control of HAI is everyone’s business and all NHS staff have a role to play. The revised standards will be available in early 2008. 

 MRSA Bug

A major aspect of controlling the spread of MRSA is screening patients for the presence of the MRSA bug.

We have consulted widely on the clinical and cost effectiveness of MRSA screening programmes. We have considered evidence of the benefits of MRSA screening programmes, and assessed the potential impact of on patient management procedures, the patients themselves and NHSScotland.

The process and findings of this work is available in our Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Report.

Further reading

More about the Scottish Patient Safety Alliance, a new initiate

More about healthcare associated infections and the MRSA bug

Clinical governance and risk management local reports

Draft healthcare associated infections (HAI) standards

MRSA screening health technology assessment (HTA)