“Good governance is invisible, bad governance is ruinous”.

Catherine Okonkwo, Chief Executive and Founder of RTT Support

With a background in governance, we sit down with our CEO to discuss her passion for good governance and explain why it’s so vital.

Governance is often an afterthought but, in my experience, a good healthcare organisation places good governance at the heart of everything it does. At the heart of everything we do as healthcare professionals should be the question ‘Are we putting patients first?’. Good governance systems enable organisations to deliver this as well as quantify metrics for quality improvement.

In my experience as a CQC inspector, I developed a profound enthusiasm for governance. Whenever I would visit a trust or private provider, my first question would always be ‘would I be happy with my mum being treated here’. If the answer was no, it was my job to ensure the service had all the information it needed to improve quality. The foundation of this, is having solid governance systems that everyone understands and feeds into. After five years at the Commission, it was clear that all organisation that prioritised good governance tended to get a better inspection rating.

Since the Commission, I’ve worked as the Head of Governance, Director of Operations and Director of Quality & Strategy at private providers. My role at the Commission gave me the tools to develop whole governance systems and my passion enabled me to get the buy in of all staff throughout the organisations I’ve worked at, at a senior level.

These skills have been adopted by RTT Support. We have a strong reporting culture, and always speak up when things don’t go to plan. In the event that something doesn’t go to plan, we have a robust reporting and investigation structure.

Throughout my career thus far, I have developed a five point ‘top tips’ that is firmly embedded at RTT Support.