The nursing view of clinical governance

This article outlines the findings from three RCN discussion groups, which aimed to gain an understanding of how nurses were responding to clinical governance and to what extent they were involved in its implementation. The article focuses mainly on the third round with clinical nursing staff, senior managers and clinical governance facilitators. Three key issues were reported by nurses taking part in all three rounds of discussion groups. First, there is the need to raise awareness among frontline clinical staff to ensure that clinical governance becomes recognised as an integral part of their clinical workload rather than being seen as an optional extra. The second issue is the need to change organisational culture to make it more receptive to clinical governance. Third is the requirement to establish greater levels of partnerships between clinicians and managers, patients and professionals, and professional groups. However, the authors caution that the organisational cultural change necessary for the successful implementation of clinical governance is not as straightforward as the literature appears to suggest, and argue that this remains a key challenge for organisational leaders, managers and clinical staff.