Vikki's Experience on the Strategic Clinical Governance and Quality Improvement Programme
Salford Professional Development had the pleasure of speaking with Vikki Wren, Senior Occupational Health Nurse at the University of Sheffield, who recently completed the Strategic Clinical Governance and Quality Improvement programme.
Vikki's role centres on supporting individuals to be fit for work, and on providing managers and HR with guidance on how best to support staff to stay fit and well within the workplace. As her career has progressed, she has become increasingly involved in clinical leadership, governance and service development within her Occupational Health service.
Having recently stepped into a management role, Vikki was looking for a course that would support the clinical governance and organisational development side of her new responsibilities. Vikki says:
“I am new to the management role within my department, so it was suggested for me to come on to this course to help support with the clinical governance and OD aspect of my role.”
“My career progression sees me involved in clinical leadership, and increasingly governance and service development. The course has given me an opportunity to build on that experience, reflect on my current practice and consider where I can make further improvements.”
Vikki found the course highly engaging and insightful. From the tutor's ability to make the content relevant across a range of disciplines to the chance to connect with peers from across healthcare, she discovered real value throughout the programme.
“I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, but the course turned out to be incredibly engaging, insightful and reassuring. Mark, our tutor, was brilliant throughout. He made the course relevant to everyone's different disciplines, encouraged plenty of discussion and got us all involved. Using anonymised examples from our own experiences helped us see just how much clinical governance is already part of our everyday practice, often without us even realising it.”
“It was lovely to meet people from different healthcare disciplines and realise just how many challenges we share, despite working in very different settings.”
The course has already had a direct impact on Vikki's work. Putting her learning into practice, she is rolling out a new clinical governance department meeting bringing together Occupational Health, Health and Safety, HR and department leads. The programme has also given her a clearer understanding of how governance connects her role as a manager with senior leadership and with the team she supports.
“It's really engaging. It really breaks it down to make it easier and shows how it relates to you as a manager, relays up to senior leadership and how to also manage people within your team.”
“The course was both insightful and reassuring. It was good to recognise that we're already doing a lot of things well within our Occupational Health service, but equally to see how much scope there is to further develop our clinical governance.”
Reflecting on her experience, Vikki shared:
“I think the biggest part I'll take from it is how to feed back the learnings from within the department to the business senior leaders and implement that change, and how best to support the individuals in terms of management styles, recognising that not one size fits all, but also being able to have that traceability for what we've done, how we've done it, and why we're doing it.”
Following the course, Vikki is now working towards the CMI Level 7 Award in Leadership and Management, using her assignment to explore how she can further strengthen Occupational Health practice within her service.
“I also get to put my academic cap back on after a couple of years to complete a 4,500-word assignment, which I'm looking forward to using to explore how I can further strengthen OH practice. A really worthwhile three days and definitely a course I'd recommend.”
The Strategic Clinical Governance and Quality Improvement programme is a three-day programme designed for healthcare leaders working in an increasingly complex and demanding environment. It equips learners to evaluate their organisation's governance arrangements, apply the Seven Pillars of Clinical Governance, evaluate governance against the CQC Single Assessment Framework, and lead measurable quality improvement. Rather than focusing solely on compliance, the programme develops leaders capable of building sustainable governance cultures that improve patient outcomes and organisational performance. Learners produce an evidence-based organisational improvement strategy, and the programme leads to a CMI Level 7 Award in Leadership and Management.
