Clinical Governance is the third element of PTUK's Ethical system, see also:
Page Links: Introduction -
Principles -
Advisory Service
Clinical
governance is the process of managing the quality of the therapists'
clinical work. PTUK regards it as an essential element in its ethical
system. Whereas the Ethical Framework and Professional Conduct
elements provide the basis for safe working with children the purpose of
clinical governance is to safeguard the effectiveness of the therapeutic
work.
Clinical governance aims to answer the questions:
- How safe is the work of a Play Therapist?
- How effective is the work of a Play Therapist?
- How do we know?
Much is talked about
evidence based practice in primary health care. However practice
based evidence is at least as equally important because it is based upon
actual 'real world' therapy with a direct link to an individual
therapist's work. PTUK uses data acquired as a result of clinical
governance to assemble practice based evidence through its
System
for
Evaluating
Play
And
Creative Arts
Therapy
Outcomes (
SEPACTO).
PTUK also believes that each
of its practitioner members has a duty to continually strive to improve
their practice. It is not sufficient to undertake CPD (Continuing
Professional Development), including further play therapy training, without identifying learning needs. Clinical
governance provides the means to do this.
The use of clinical governance
in the UK, for psychology based therapies is in its infancy although
some progress is being made in adult counselling in primary care. There
are significant differences in working with children:
- The measuring instruments
have to take into account the constraints of childrens' ability to
complete questionnaires.
- The vast majority of
children do not self refer. This means that the objectives of the
parent/carer, referrer, or commissioner of the service have to be
taken into account.
At present there isn't an
agreed standardised measure. Many different psychometric instruments
are, for example, used for assessment. Many of these could be used for
clinical governance.
PTUK does not make the use of
any particular instrument mandatory but it does require the therapist to
submit details of the documentation/measure/system that they are using
for approval. (
SEPACTO)
is sufficiently flexible to accommodate
data from most measures. The use of the Goodmans SDQ is recommended
by PTUK.
The main principles of
applying clinical governance are:
- Selecting an appropriate measuring instrument
- Taking before and after therapy measures(and perhaps at interim stages if there are more than 12 sessions are planned)
- Recording the data in an appropriate system such as (SEPACTO)
taking care to protect the confidentiality of clients.
- Analysing 'your' data to detect any evidence of unsatisfactory results and using this information to take corrective action.
- Comparing 'your' data with other relevant data sets to identify any significant evidence that
indicate that improvements could be made in your practice. Using this
information to identify CPD needs etc
- Sharing your anonomised data with others through reporting, research papers, SEPACTO etc.
PTUK offers an advisory service for organisations using therapeutic play or play
therapy who wish to set up clinical governance.
