Clinical governance base-line assessment for clinical services in Eastbourne Downs Primary Care Trust

This report describes an analysis and appraisal of Clinical Governance Baseline Assessment data, undertaken by the Centre for Health Services Studies at the University of Kent on behalf of the Chief Executive of Eastbourne Downs Primary Care Trust (EDPCT). The information described was gathered in a base-line assessment exercise carried out by Eastbourne Downs PCT in Autumn 2002 involving the Director of Clinical Services and Nursing, the PEC Clinical Governance lead and with medical audit support. The assessment covered community services, and this report gives the results for the areas of clinical governance that the baseline assessment covered and for the fifteen individual clinical services that took part. The Commission for Health Improvements (CHI) recommends that NHS organisations have clinical governance processes in place and has made several self - assessment tools available. While there are different tools for different levels of the NHS to use -corporate/strategic management, senior management, clinical/ care services CHI has not so far produced a template for Primary Care Trusts. On the website, general guidance of relevance to this report includes that clinical governance assessments should be made every 6-12 months, that it should be a team activity and that several hours should be put aside for reflection on a particular service. CHI suggests that the process looks for poor perfonnance in areas of high impact, and chooses a small number of areas for action.