NHS Governance Services and Support

We provide a range of governance services to help our clients embed cultures, policies and practices across their organisations to ensure they are responsible, accountable and fully compliant with the latest standards and legislation.

Our experienced and highly qualified teams offer advice and support with information governance, corporate assurance - incorporating risk management, business continuity and health and safety - and freedom of information requests.

Information Governance

Arden & GEM delivers flexible Information Governance services designed to meet your exact needs. From full end-to-end support to modular provision which dovetails with
your existing in-house processes and resource, we support health organisations with the integration, impact analysis and implementation of national legislation and guidance. Our services include:

• Information Governance (IG) diagnostics and set up from reviews and gap analysis to developing templates and policies
• Effective and compliant information sharing
• NHS IG toolkit development
• Training needs analysis and bespoke training programmes
• Management and support of subject access requests
• Data Protection Officer provision.

Corporate Assurance

We work with a number of ICBs to encourage a proactive and positive approach to health and safety, business continuity and risk management. By engaging with staff at all levels and providing training relevant to their situations, we have helped ICBs to develop an organisational culture where everyone takes personal responsibility in these key areas:

• A collaborative risk management service to guide, support and challenge ICBs in identifying, quantifying and managing risk, providing experienced and objective advice alongside robust risk management tools
• Business continuity support to ensure ICBs have the right processes in place so that critical services and functions can be maintained in the event of a disruptive incident, including Business Continuity impact assessments, policy development and training
• Supportive and proactive health and safety expertise and a competent person service, including carrying out annual audits and working with ICBs to put action plans in place
• Specific training to ensure health and safety procedures are fully embedded across your organisation and an established health and safety management system based on the internationally recognised OHSAS 18001 standard
• Flexible board support including development sessions, legal support and advice with issues such as declarations of interest and hospitality and gifts.

Freedom of Information

Our experienced, qualified Freedom of Information (FOI) team manages more than 3,000 FOI requests a year for ICB customers and can manage your FOI service through the entire life-cycle of a request and to deadline including:

• Strategic advice and guidance relating to the FOI Act around public interest factors affecting the disclosure of sensitive information, to ensure we protect your organisation’s reputation
• Support for internal or external reviews resulting from requestors’ appealing a decision not to disclose information – including appeals to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Benefits:

Our teams have a strong track record in providing robust, efficient and effective governance, assurance and risk services for our clients and have wide experience of working with local authorities and other healthcare providers.

With a full understanding of the deliverables that are required, we work with ICBs across a wide area to identify and continuously improve processes in line with the latest regulation and best practice - with a particular focus on helping you embed the approach across your organisation as a whole.