Tony WrightTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if clinicians are allowed to participate in clinical governance arrangements; and what sanctions are available if they do not. [142188]
§ Mr. DenhamThe arrangements for clinical governance provide a coherent and comprehensive framework of measures to assure and improve the quality of patient care in the National Health Service. These arrangements are multi-disciplinary and all clinicians are expected to participate in their delivery.
The Health Act 1999 places a duty of quality on primary care trusts, health authorities and NHS trusts. They must ensure that this duty is discharged properly by putting and keeping in place arrangements for continuously monitoring and improving the quality of health care they provide through the implementation of clinical governance. NHS organisations are responsible for ensuring that clinicians participate fully in clinical governance arrangements.
The Commission for Health Improvement will monitor the implementation of clinical governance through a rolling programme of clinical governance reviews.
Clinical governance is underpinned by arrangements for professional appraisal. The NHS Plan proposes that, subject to Parliament, by April 2001, all doctors working in primary care, whether as principals, non-principals or locums, will be required to be on a list of a health authority and be subject to clinical governance arrangements. These will include annual appraisal and mandatory participation in clinical audit.
The NHS Plan also sets out provisions for making annual appraisal and effective job plans mandatory for all consultants. The intention is to introduce an agreed mechanism for employer-based appraisal, by April 2001, as a contractual requirement. The outcome of the appraisal process will need to be compatible with, and to feed into, the processes of clinical governance and General Medical Council revalidation, which will require all doctors to demonstrate that they remain fit to practise in their chosen field.