Clinical Governance

Good medical leadership is key to promoting patient safety and to improving quality of care. At Concordia we are continuously looking to improve the quality of our services ensuring at all times that we safe-guard high standards of care. This is achieved through an integrated approach to governance which is predicated on the creation of an environment within our practices and services in which clinical excellence flourishes. Dr Simon Fradd leads from the front supported by our experienced clinical leads at practice and service level whose main responsibility is to put quality of care at the heart of everything that we do, to provide a framework for Clinical Governance and to support our staff in the delivery of primary services

The intent of integrated governance within Concordia is to ensure all threads of quality, performance and governance are aligned and integrated and that our Board has in place robust systems of assurance.

The clinical objective of the Concordia is to deliver "high quality clinical services".

We believe that there are three clinical principles that underpin this clinical objective namely that:

• Services should be patient-centred
• Services must be delivered safely and through a learning environment and
• Services must be effective

The clinical objective is of paramount importance. We believe that the links between, and the integration of, all the three clinical principles are vital to provide clinical oversight, ensure the maintenance of patient safety and provide a platform from which there is continual clinical quality improvement.

We currently monitor our performance using the evidence-based indicators and standards in the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) and the PCT Performance Development Framework, which focuses on various issues outside the QOF, particularly public health targets.

Our clinical governance also includes patient and public involvement; staff management; and continuous learning. We have developed a comprehensive training needs assessment, appraisal and educational programme to ensure that we continue to assess how we are performing and what we need to do to respond to patient and staff needs.

At Concordia we strive to deliver high quality care, to respond to service users input, to learn from patient surveys, audit and mistakes, in an environment where all practitioners and staff are encouraged to develop their skills and expertise. In this way we will ensure that the care we offer to individual patients as well as the populations we serve is delivered and developed in a way that continuously improves.