PoCT2 – Clinical responsibility

The successful implementation of PoCT requires skills, knowledge and time. To ensure results are of a uniformly high quality, the practice needs to properly manage relevant organisational and technical activities. This can be best achieved if one member of the clinical team is responsible for, and oversees, PoCT activities. 

Effective clinical governance of PoCT ensures that:

• each member of the practice team takes ownership of PoCT processes, models good practice, and challenges poor practice 
• each member of the practice team is jointly accountable for patient safety and high-quality care 
• roles, responsibilities and accountabilities for achieving agreed outcomes are clearly allocated to and agreed to by members of the practice team, according to each person’s scope of practice 
• members of the practice team apply learning from continuous quality improvement practice to enhance patient safety and quality of care. 

A designated member of the clinical team needs to have ultimate responsibility for PoCT undertaken by the practice. This person needs to:

• have an adequate understanding of PoCT, including:
  • the diagnostic and technical applications and any limitations 
  • the PoCT Standards in this document 
  • the practice’s PoCT policies and procedures 
• have competency in using the practice’s PoCT program or system (demonstrated by providing evidence of appropriate PoCT training which could be external courses, in-house programs, or ‘on the job’ training at the practice)
• be able to delegate their day-to-day PoCT responsibilities to an appropriately trained PoCT practitioner, while retaining ultimate oversight of PoCT in the practice. 

The practice could: 

• maintain a clinical governance policy 
• maintain a standing order for practice nurses to carry out PoCT and to interpret results according to their level of training and scope of practice.