Exploring Nurses' Perceptions on Clinical Governance at Grey Hospital, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Clinical governance is a systematic approach to maintaining and improving the quality of patient care within health systems. This research assessed nurses' perceptions of the availability of clinical governance protocols and quality improvement activities at Grey Hospital, a district hospital in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. A descriptive cross-sectional study was used to collect quantitative data from doctors and nurses across various disciplines using a structured questionnaire. Data were captured using Microsoft Excel and analysed using STATA. Of the 105 participants who consented to participate, the majority were female (66.4%) and aged between 37 and 47 years (48.6%), with a mean age of 43.9 years. Most participants were professional nurses (59.8%), with enrolled nurses (20.6%) and enrolled nursing assistants (17.8%) comprising the remainder of the sample. The findings show that nurses perceived most clinical governance protocols to be present at Grey Hospital. However, only 54.3% reported occurrence of regular morbidity and mortality (M&M) meetings. These results suggest that while nurses perceive clinical governance protocols to be available at Grey Hospital, the gap in regular M&M meetings indicates that perceived availability does not automatically translate to effective implementation. Strengthening accountability mechanisms, ensuring adequate resources, and establishing systematic monitoring are essential to translate protocols into sustained quality improvement.