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Quality, value & clinical excellence.
Delivering exceptional standards of patient care, safety and clinical accountability
Clinical governance
We robustly and consistently monitor the quality of treatment, patient safety and patient experience. These are closely observed across both the leadership team and the wider organisation and there is a culture of information sharing, learning and best practice.
Clinical governance is defined as a system through which healthcare organisations are accountable for continuously improving the quality of their services and safeguarding high standards of care by creating an environment in which excellence in clinical care will flourish.
Effective clinical governance ensures that risks are mitigated, adverse events are rapidly detected and investigated openly and lessons are learned (Scally and Donaldson 1998, p.61).
5 key themes appear repeatedly in policy documents about healthcare quality. Schoen Clinic UK ensures these 5 themes are at the core of governance.
5 key themes about healthcare quality:
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Patient focus - how services are based on patient needs
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Information focus - how information is used
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Quality improvement - how standards are reviewed and attained
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Staff focus- how staff are developed
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Leadership - how improvement efforts are planned.
The 5 themes are interconnected and provide a framework to examine those areas that significantly affect the quality of care.
Employed Consultants
We directly employ many of our Consultants in a departmental structure much like the NHS, with the remainder working under traditional Practice Privileges.
This enables individual buy-in and commitment to incremental process improvement, with a focus on quality, safety and patient clinical outcomes.
We do this through the development of fully functional multidisciplinary teams (MDTs).
Almost all of our physician leaders are employed and work within our governance structure to deliver a clinically focused patient pathway into which our independent practitioners can fit their own practice, ensuring there is still a predictable, measurable and optimised outcome.
Schoen Clinic UK Quality Accounts
As a healthcare provider, we are required to produce annual reports - our Quality Account.
These reports detail the effectiveness of the treatments we provide, our committment to patient safety, patient satisfaction levels of the care received and an evaluation of the quality of our services.
Our Quality Accounts are available to download:
Schoen Clinic UK Quality Account 2022-2023
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Schoen Clinic UK Quality Account 2021-2022
Freedom to Speak Up Guardians
We work hard to maintain an open and transparent culture where anyone at any level can raise concerns without fear, safe in the knowledge that someone will listen and act on their feedback.
Our speak up guardians are trained and have access to a confidential third-party whistleblowing hotline. This helps us identify and investigate concerns about colleague behaviour, practice and the way we run our hospitals.
If incidents do occur, we make every effort to respond quickly and effectively and dedicate appropriate resources to both individual events and any broader issues which may arise. We share relevant information and lessons learnt both within our organisation, the NHS and other independent sector hospitals.
Standardisation
We operate within the Medical Practitioners Assurance Framework (MPAF), which strengthens our governance framework and ensures a more standardised approach.
Through the MPAF Responsible Officer system we can proactively develop two-way information sharing between private providers and NHS colleagues.
Care Quality Commission (CQC)
We continuously monitor our performance against the standards set by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and strive for continuous improvement and outstanding patient care.
All our UK hospitals are rated 'Good' or 'Outstanding' by the Care Quality Commission
