Threats to patient safety during clinical handover have been identified as an ongoing problem in health care delivery.

In complex handover situations, organisational, cultural, behavioural and environmental factors associated with team performance can affect patient safety by undermining the stability of team functioning and the effectiveness of interprofessional communication.

We present a practical framework for promoting systematic, comprehensive measurement of the factors involved in clinical handover. The framework can be used to develop viable solutions to the problems of clinical handover.

The framework was devised and used in a recent project examining interprofessional communication and team performance during clinical handover in post-anaesthetic care units.

The framework combines five key concepts: clinical governance, clinician engagement, ecological validity, safety culture and team climate, and sustainability.

We believe that use of this framework will help overcome the limitations of previous research that has not taken into account the complex and multifaceted influences on clinical handover and interprofessional communication.