Effective board governance of safe care: a (theoretically underpinned) cross-sectioned examination of the breadth and depth of relationships through national quantitative surveys and in-depth qualitative case studies
Mannion R, Freeman T, Millar R, Davies H
Record ID 32016000201
English
Authors' objectives:
Recent high-profile reports into serious failings in the quality of hospital care in the NHS raise concerns over the ability of trust boards to discharge their duties effectively.
Our study aimed to generate theoretically grounded empirical evidence on the associations between board governance, patient safety processes and patient-centred outcomes. The specific aims were as follows: (1) to identify the types of governance activities undertaken by hospital trust boards in the English NHS with regard to ensuring safe care in their organisation; (2) in foundation trusts, to explore the role of boards and boards of governors with regards to the oversight of patient safety in their organisation; (3) to assess the association between particular hospital trust board oversight activities and patient safety processes and clinical outcomes; (4) to identify the facilitators and barriers to developing effective hospital trust board governance of safe care; and (5) to assess the impact of external commissioning arrangements and incentives on hospital trust board oversight of patient safety.
Authors' recommendations:
Our research is the first large-scale mixed-methods study of hospital board activity and behaviour related to the oversight of patient safety in the English NHS and the key findings should be used to influence the design of future governance arrangements as well as the training and support of board. Our finding that board governance/competencies appear to be linked to staff feeling safe to raise concerns about patient safety issues, and also their confidence that their organisation would address their concern, is worthy of further and more sustained exploration, particularly in the context of the current focus on improving whistleblowing policies in the NHS.
Details
Project Status:
Completed
Year Published:
2016
URL for published report:
http://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/hsdr/hsdr04040/#/abstract
English language abstract:
An English language summary is available
Publication Type:
Not Assigned
Country:
England, United Kingdom
MeSH Terms
- Humans
- Governing Board
- Qualitative Research
- Surveys and Questionnaires
- Patient Safety
- Whistleblowing
Contact
Organisation Name:
NIHR Health Services and Delivery Research programme
Contact Address:
NIHR Journals Library, National Institute for Health and Care Research, Evaluation, Trials and Studies Coordinating Centre, Alpha House, University of Southampton Science Park, Southampton SO16 7NS, UK
Contact Name:
journals.library@nihr.ac.uk
Contact Email:
journals.library@nihr.ac.uk
Copyright:
Queen's Printer and Controller of HMSO
This is a bibliographic record of a published health technology assessment from a member of INAHTA or other HTA producer. No evaluation of the quality of this assessment has been made for the HTA database.