About the principles
The four principles listed below underpin effective clinical governance for the medical profession. Embedding them will help organisations develop systems and processes in a way which supports the delivery of high quality patient care.
We have created checklists for each of the principles, to provide further detail and how to apply them in practice, with a series of prompts you can use to help evaluate whether clinical governance arrangements for doctors are effective. The checklist should be considered as a tool to support the development of good practice, rather than defining a set of additional requirements for organisations to meet.
For more details about a principle and information about how to apply it in practice, select it in the list below.
Principle 1 – Organisations create an environment which delivers effective clinical governance for doctors
Clinical excellence and the well-being of doctors are at the centre of the organisation’s approach to deliver high-quality patient care.
Principle 2 – Clinical governance processes for doctors are managed and monitored with a view to continuous improvement
Well-structured and governed systems with learning and continuous improvement at their heart promote confidence in patients and doctors.
Principle 3 – Safeguards are in place to ensure clinical governance arrangements for doctors are fair and free from bias and discrimination
It is important patients, doctors, and other healthcare professionals have confidence that clinical governance arrangements for doctors are fair. Transparency of processes, including sharing of information and how decisions are made, play a key role in this.
Principle 4 – Organisations deliver clinical governance processes required to support medical revalidation and the evaluation of doctors’ fitness to practise
Organisations have a responsibility to ensure their clinical governance arrangements support the medical workforce to practise safely and meet their professional obligations. But also to identify and respond to concerns about doctors as they emerge.
