Clinical Governance
Most people have never heard the term clinical governance. Fewer still know whether the health information they read online has been checked by anyone at all.
The truth is confronting. Anyone can publish health advice with no requirement to have it reviewed, no requirement to declare a commercial interest, and no accountability when it turns out to be wrong. A single person, qualified or not, can reach millions of women with claims that have never been tested by another set of eyes. This is how misinformation spreads. It is also how women end up paying for programs and supplements built on nothing.
Clinical governance is the structure that stops this happening. It means separating the people who create content from the people who check it, setting standards those checks must meet, and building a process that holds even when a topic is new, contested, or uncomfortable.
At WHEN, clinical governance is not a policy sitting in a drawer. It shapes how every piece of content gets made, reviewed, and released.
A Team, Not One Person
Most health content online comes from one person. At WHEN, content is developed by a group of health professionals, both internal and external, and then reviewed separately by the Clinical Governance Committee before it is published. The people who write the content are not the people who approve it.
The committee draws members from nursing, midwifery, pelvic floor physiotherapy, geriatrics, paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology, general practice, public health, women’s health medicine, pharmacy, academic research, health literacy, allied health, fitness and exercise professionals, and consumer representation. Some members bring more than one field of expertise.
No one on the committee is expected to know every area of women’s health. When research needs checking for methodology, the committee draws on medical librarianship. When data needs interpreting, it draws on research expertise.
For topics that need specific expertise beyond the standing committee, WHEN brings in guest reviewers with relevant experience, drawn from clinical and non-clinical fields depending on what the content requires.
Every review needs at least four members from different specialties in the room, not just one or two people making the call. The committee works through disagreement until it reaches agreement, rather than one senior voice deciding alone. Members also agree to keep everything they see confidential, and complete training in child and youth safety as part of their role on the committee.
When Something Needs a Second Look
Health information is never finished. Research keeps evolving, and WHEN’s content evolves with it.
Women’s health is also under-researched. In many areas, the answers simply are not there yet, even though people online often talk as if they are. WHEN uses the best available evidence and says clearly when that evidence has limits.
Running during pregnancy is a good example. There is good evidence that running does not harm the baby. What is missing is longer-term research on what running does to the woman’s own body, things like pelvic floor load or joint changes over time. We do not have that answer yet, and we would rather say so plainly than pretend it exists when it does not.
Every project has a scheduled review, usually every one to two years depending on the topic, where the Clinical Governance Committee checks it against current evidence. Content is also reviewed outside that schedule whenever new research or new information comes to light.
The committee meets quarterly, under Terms of Reference reviewed annually by the Board, and matters can be raised and circulated between meetings when something can’t wait.
If a concern is raised, it goes to senior management first, then to the Clinical Governance Committee. This applies whether the concern comes from a reader, a contributor, or someone on the team, and anonymous feedback is treated the same way as any other. Checking for concerns and complaints is a standing item at every meeting.
If a change is needed, the committee decides what happens and reports back to the WHEN Board, which holds ultimate responsibility for everything WHEN publishes under WHEN’s Clinical Governance Framework, established November 2024.
Where This Shows Up
WHEN’s content starts with a backing document, where the evidence base for a topic is built and then reviewed by the Clinical Governance Committee. Articles are written in plain English from that approved backing document. Projects and podcasts, where the content is new rather than a plain English version of existing material, go through their own review by the committee.
When you see a line at the bottom of a page saying content has been clinically reviewed by the WHEN Clinical Governance Committee, this is the process that line refers to.
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WHEN is a women’s health organisation working to educate all women across Australia to give them the power to make decisions to live and age well through exercise and movement.