This resource is aimed at the nursing workforce across all settings and levels of practice, including nursing students.

• Patient safety, clinical governance and quality improvement
• What this resource covers
• Introduction
• The Independent Maternity Review (known as the Ockenden review) 2022
• Key message

Clinical governance ensures that everyone, from frontline staff to leaders, shares responsibility for maintaining high standards and continuous improvement.

• Clinical governance
• The seven pillars of clinical governance
• Learning and reflection

Patient safety is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) (2023) as “the absence of preventable harm to a patient and reduction of risk of unnecessary harm associated with health care to an acceptable minimum”.

• Patient safety
• When to escalate a concern
• Reporting incidents
• Incivility in the workplace and its impact on safety
• Seeking help and support about patient safety
• Developing a culture of safety
• Compassionate leadership
• Learning supports safer care
• Learning and reflection: Activity 1

Human factors (also known as ‘ergonomics’) is the study of how people work with each other and with the systems around them. It looks at how tasks, equipment, environments and teamwork affect safety and performance.

• Human factors
• Key aspects of human factors
• Strategies for designing safer work environments and improving interactions in health and social care
• Learning and reflection: Activity 2

The nursing workforce, across all health and social care settings, plays a key role in leading and championing changes that improve the quality of care and services.

• Quality improvement
• Why quality improvement matters
• What quality improvement is
• Quality improvement and clinical audit are not the same
• Why change can be hard
• Learning and reflection: Activity 3
• Theories to support improvement
• Learning and reflection: Activity 4
• Further reading on Quality Improvement

Here at the RCN, we have several areas of related work that fundamentally focus on improving the quality of care, patient safety and supporting high-quality standards.

• RCN work relating to quality of care and patient safety
• Ending corridor care
• Safe staffing and workforce standards
• Raising concerns
• Other useful resources (external organisations)