Shared governance and professional decision-making approaches enable staff to come together in a collaborative way to discuss and collaborate on what matters to them and the communities they serve.

Offering an evidence-based approach, it offers a way to flatten traditional leadership hierarchies and enables teams to develop collective leadership across their organisations. Working in this way has been shown to improve working environments for staff, supports innovation, drives quality and service improvements that deliver better outcomes and experiences for patients and communities. Supporting local expert led decision-making, whole system working innovation at all levels, shared governance and professional decision-making approaches ensure all staff have a voice that is listened to and valued.

Whether involving decisions that affect the day-to-day work of teams or those concerning communities, organisations or professions; by coming together in this way and underpinned by the relevant evidence-base this provides staff with a strong collective professional voice. A voice which supports the pursuit of excellence within care, within professions and across organisations and systems.

Inspired by the important work and improvement being delivered at the point of care through SPDM, many councils are emerging at regional and system levels – including within social care organisations. From 2020, at a national level, the establishment of a whole family of shared professional decision-making councils demonstrates The Chief Nursing Officer for England’s commitment to this way of working.

To learn more about shared governance and professional decision making, or to connect with colleagues from across health and acre to share resources and continue learning, you can join the Chief Nursing Officer for England’s Excellence Programme on Futures (Future login required).

Alternatively for more information please contact the CNO Policy and Strategy Unit at england.nursingpolicystrategy@nhs.net.

Shared governance and professional decision-making e-learning

This e-learning session is designed for clinical staff working within health and care.

It will be helpful to anyone wishing to develop an understanding of shared governance and professional decision-making can be used to drive improvement and better outcomes across health and care.

The content has been co-developed with staff working across a range of settings in health and care.