Integrated governance

Integrated governance is the process of ‘systems, processes and behaviours by which United Kingdom National Health Service trusts lead, direct and control their functions in order to achieve organisational objectives, safety and quality of service and in which they relate to patients and carers, the wider community and partner organisations’ (From The Integrated Governance Handbook [http://www.dh.gov.uk/assetRoot/04/12/96/15/04129615.pdf] published by the Department of Health, London February 2006 - Gateway Reference 5947) It was developed as an approach to simplfying the complex governance arrangements of NHS organisations, and consists of a series of ten improvement activities which are designed to rationalise and sharpen the way NHS organisations are run. These activities are:

# Establish and revisit the organisation's clarity of purpose and strategic objectives
# Establish a strategic annual cycle of business
# Ensure integrated assurance systems are in place
# Move to decision-taking supported by intelligent information
# Create a streamlined committee structure with clear terms of reference, delegation and reporting arrangements
# Set up a strengthened audit committee to scrutinise all Trust activities
# Establish effective Board supports
# Establish processess to ensure Board fitness for purpose through selection, induction and review of Board members
# Agree and apply Board etiquette
# Develop individual executive and non-executive directors to ensure Board corporacy

References

*'Integrated Governance Handbook', Department of Health, London February 2006
*'Integrated Governance Toolkit', Andrew Corbett-Nolan, Health and Social Care Quality Centre, July 2005
*'Temple or Bridge: Where is the Quality Framework?’, Bullivant and Corbett-Nolan, Health and Social Care Quality Centre 2005
*'The Development of Integrated Governance', NHS Confederation, May 2004