ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how clinical governance involves a coherent range of activities, which together assure the quality of clinical care. Primary care trusts are now responsible for the clinical governance of primary care - giving patients, healthcare professionals, managers and government assurances about the goodness of clinical care provided. The methods used to determine patients' views can be divided into three types, namely measures of preferences, evaluations of users, and reports of healthcare. Primary care is a 'people business', and the quality of care provided depends critically on adequate numbers of caring, competent and motivated staff, and the ability of those staff to work as a team. Clinical supervision is normal professional practice for a number of the 'caring' professions, and was well established in midwifery long before clinical governance came into being. Accreditation has been defined as 'a system of external peer review for determining compliance with a set of standards'.
