Safety and quality roles and responsibilities

Safety and quality are everybody’s responsibility. Having a culture of safety and quality improvement requires a clear understanding of who is accountable for what. Figure 2 outlines the key safety and quality roles and responsibilities and how these might be assigned, depending on the size of the healthcare service. 

Figure 2: Roles and responsibilities for clinical governance in different service sizes

• Source: National Safety and Quality Primary and Community Healthcare Standards (ACSQHC, 2021).

Supporting your workforce to understand and fulfil their assigned safety and quality responsibilities can be carried out in a variety of ways and may be dependent on the size and complexity of your healthcare service. In some circumstances, a shared understanding of different people’s safety and quality roles may help contextualise an individual’s understanding of and ability to carry out assigned responsibilities. 

Links to Actions 1.01 Governance, leadership and culture and 1.15 Safety and quality training

• How is your workforce supported to understand and fulfil their safety and quality roles and responsibilities?

• Ensure that safety and quality roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and described in your healthcare service’s clinical governance framework.
• Support the workforce to understand and fulfil their assigned safety and quality roles and responsibilities through position descriptions, orientation and training, ongoing communications, performance review processes (if applicable).

The type and comprehensiveness of evidence used is dependent on each healthcare service context. The content and complexity of the policies and processes will likely depend on the size of the healthcare service, but could include:

• Policy documents or position descriptions that outline or describe the safety and quality roles and responsibilities of the workforce
• Training and orientation documents about the safety and quality roles and responsibilities of the workforce
• In larger healthcare services, an organisational chart and delegation policy that demonstrates clinical governance reporting lines and relationships, where applicable.

Commission resource

• National Model Clinical Governance Framework – provides practical guidance on clinical governance roles and responsibilities, based on the NSQHS Standards. The principles of clinical governance and roles and responsibilities outlined are broadly applicable.