Educational governance in the NHS: a literature review

This paper aims to survey the literature relating to educational governance's application to healthcare. Its purpose is to establish the extent to which this type of governance is recognised by healthcare staff, and to develop an understanding of how it is defined and used.

The starting point for the literature review was an academic database search supplemented by a Google Scholar search. The results were sifted using evidence strength criteria and filtered for relevance using secondary keywords.

The educational governance in healthcare literature search indicates that this is a relatively under-researched area. There are few attempts to define educational governance, although several authors note similarities with clinical governance. Authors cite educational governance as an important component of integrated approaches to healthcare governance, noting inter-dependent relationships between areas such as clinical governance, organisational development and risk management. RESEARCH LIMITATION/IMPLICATIONS: Given the diverse academic and grey literature used for the review, it was difficult to apply conventional evidence-strength scales, especially because most articles cited in the text are based on expert opinion rather than systematic review.

The review highlights educational governance's value to healthcare organisations and provides references for organisational staff contemplating developing this area.

The paper is the first known attempt to survey the literature relating to National Health Service educational governance.