Clinical governance - updates

Pages within this clinical governance online resource will be updated on a regular basis as well as offering a number of other ways in which you can keep up-to-date and find out about further resources:

you can register for the RCN Quality and Safety e-Bulletin (formerly the RCN Clinical Governance e-Bulletin) which we issue on a fortnightly basis and which uses themes similar to those within this online resource to capture news and describe new resources and initiatives. Sign up for the e-Bulletin
the latest e-Bulletin will be added to this page as a word document along with some of the earlier Bulletins
other resources are available such as the Delicious social bookmarking tool and the RCN e-library Fast service - see below for further details.

Latest Bulletin

e-Bulletin 26 January 2012 (Word 68.5KB)

Bulletin archive

Copies of recent e-Bulletins are also made available here to form a useful archive of resources and activities in the clinical governance themes over the preceding months:

Delicious: Quality and Safety - Royal College of Nursing's bookmarks

The RCN is now experimenting with the social bookmarking tool Delicious which can help you to store and share online resources. Many of the resources that appear in the Quality and Safety e-Bulletin are being bookmarked which enables you to search for particular topics using the keywords (tags) that we assign to each resource - more information on this is available below. Have a look at the RCN's quality and safety bookmarks (formerly clinical governance bookmarks) at http://delicious.com/clinicalgovernance.

We are updating regularly so please visit often.

Getting the most out of the Delicious RCN bookmarks

All bookmarked resources in Delicious are tagged (assigned subject keywords). The top 10 tags are always displayed on the right hand side of the page. There is also a link to all the tags used which is arranged alphabetically.
We assign all resources that we bookmark a tag which reflects the section headings within the e-Bulletin - these headings are: evidence-based-practice; patient-focus; patient-safety; quality-improvement; research; staff-focus (note that we use hyphens for tags of more than one word). We also assign a period of time during which the resource was added e.g. jan-mar2011 so you can apply these as tags if you want to limit your search.
We then add further tags which reflect the content of the resource and we include a country heading to identify a resource specific to one of the UK countries, and occasionally countries outside of the UK such as the USA. Also any resources specific to the RCN are tagged with that abbreviation.
Once you have selected a tag you can combine it with further tags from the list of related tags on the right of the page or type another keyword in the tag bar at the top. Alternatively you can enter all the tags you want to combine by typing them into the 'type a tag' box at the top of the Quality and Safety Bookmark's homepage. Make sure each tag is separated by a space e.g. patient-safety clinical-guidelines Scotland.

RCN e-library: Fast (frequently asked selected topics)

Fast topics provide a useful and fast way of finding recent information on a topic as well as finding references to earlier material. One of the topics included is clinical governance and references are from 2006 onwards. Fast also includes a range of other topics relevant to clinical governance.

You will require your RCN membership number to access Fast then click on the topic to execute an immediate, up-to-date search of journal articles from British Nursing Index. Some references include links to the online article, however if an article is not available electronically a paper copy can be requested through the RCN Library postal photocopying service. Bear in mind that if you want a more comprehensive search you may also need to search on other databases.

Visit Fast via the RCN e-library (You will find Fast in the left hand menu). To see more about how the RCN e-library can help you see Further resources.