Evaluating service performance for clinical governance.

Introduction The standards of service delivery should be those that allow you to practise as a competent clinician. You may be competent but be unable to perform or practise to a competent level if the resources available to you are inadequate, or other colleagues have insufficient knowledge or skills to support you. You cannot be expected to take all the responsibility for ensuring that the resources you need to be able to practise in a competent manner are available. However, as a professional you should play a significant role in collecting evidence to make a case for the need for essential resources for your staff or colleagues to the Trust or primary care organisation, to colleagues or managers, or whomever is appropriate. Many of the methods used to establish individual performance are relevant for evaluating service performance.1 Defining what your service provides gives you a yardstick against which to measure your service performance. Use several methods to identify overlaps or gaps in your service development or delivery and the learning needs of your organisation, so that you validate the findings of one method by another. No one method will give you reliable information. Colleagues from different disciplines could usefully comment on any shortfalls or overlaps in how your work interfaces with theirs. Patients or people who do not use your services could tell you whether the way you operate or provide services is off-putting or inappropriate. There may be data about the performance or outcomes of your service that could point out those gaps in your service provision of which you were previously unaware.