Quality, risk management and governance in mental health: an overview.
OBJECTIVE
To consider the origin, current emphasis and relevance of the concepts of quality, risk management and clinical governance in mental health.


CONCLUSIONS
Increasingly, health service boards and management teams are required to give attention to clinical governance rather than corporate governance alone. Clinical governance is a unifying quality concept that aims to produce a structure and systems to assure and improve the quality of clinical services by promoting an integrated and organization-wide approach towards continuous quality improvement. Many psychiatrists will find the reduction in clinical autonomy, the need to consider the welfare of the whole population as well as the individual patient for whom they are responsible, and the requirement that they play a part in a complex systems approach to quality improvement to be a challenge. Avoiding or ignoring this challenge will potentially lead to conflict with modern management approaches and increased loss of influence on future developments in mental health services.
Callaly
Tom
T
Community and Mental Health, Barwon Health, Geelong, Vic., Australia. thomas@barwonhealth.org.au
Arya
Dinesh
D
Minas
Harry
H
D001315:Australia; D006075:Governing Board; D006801:Humans; D008485:Medical Audit; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*; D017009:Professional Autonomy; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000592:standards; D012308:Risk Management