ABSTRACT
One of the concerns often expressed about responsive regulation applied to health is that no single regulator is responsible for the Australian health system. This chapter shows how decentred regulation of health safety does not necessarily involve a crisis of ungovernability, only of top-down governability. It is conceived as a challenge for multi-level governance that works through nodes which decisively coordinate improvement. Nurse Response is not a nurse manager. She is an ordinary nurse recently assigned to work with Dr Good and Nurse Deed. The Good–Deed team is generally conscientious, competent and caring with patients. At a subsequent care planning meeting with Good, Deed and many others, Nurse Response says she is pleased to see that, across both floors on which she works, compliance with this protocol is improving. Responsive regulation calls for the networked governance of health care safety and quality.
