Myriam Lugon, Jonathan Secker-Walker, Editors. (Pp 215; £18.50). London: Royal Society of Medicine, 2000. ISBN 1 85315 471 7.

The contents of this book update and extend the material covered in the authors' previous and very successful book “Clinical Governance—Making it Happen”. The current book provides a very good review of many of the issues in the area of clinical governance and associated recent Government initiatives. The editors and most of the contributors have a healthy realism and touch on many of the contradictions inherent in trying to modernise and assure quality of all aspects of the NHS, while meeting patient expectation and budgetary constraints.

For those setting up clinical governance arrangements or wishing to check their arrangements against a standard model, chapter 3 on “Organisation and clinical governance” will provide a very …