Clinical Service Accreditation

Clinical Service Accreditation (CSA) is the national, patient-focused and professionally-led accreditation and quality improvement framework supported by HQIP.

• It enables clinical services to be independently measured or surveyed against national standards. This means we can identify what is being done well and where NHS Trust Boards and senior leadership teams can focus their improvement efforts
• It provides an integrated and sustainable framework, coordinating quality improvement initiatives and embedding improvement into the everyday practices of clinical teams and clinical services
• It is recognised by the Care Quality Commission, reducing the burden of regulation.
• It is underpinned by professionally-led standards developed with the British Standards Institute

CSA provides this quality improvement framework in three main ways:

1. by supporting clinical services to develop new accreditation schemes
2. by supporting existing clinical services accreditation schemes to attain professionally-led standards
3. by demonstrating the impact of accreditation in achieving high quality clinical services

Statement of Intent

HQIP (on behalf of the Clinical Service Accreditation Sponsor Gorup), BSI and the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) share a common purpose in improving the quality of healthcare services through standards and accreditation. To this end, the three organisations have collaborated on a joint statement of intent in support of clinical service accreditation and service improvement that lays out each other’s respective roles and contributions.

Resources to support your accreditation programmes

These resources provide professional bodies, CEOs, managers and clinical leaders with a framework for setting up and managing clinical accreditation schemes. Click on the links below to find out more:

1. Development of standards for clinical service accreditation schemes
2. Sharing and improving accreditation methodologies
3. How to map clinical services into groupings for the development of accreditation schemes
4. PAS 1616  – A generic framework of standards for accrediting clinical services from the British Standards Institute 
5. Information management, data, and systems
6. Support for development of accreditation schemes

These resources were produced with British Standards Institute, United Kingdom Accreditation Service and the Royal College of Physicians on behalf of the Clinical Service Accreditation Alliance (CSAA).

More information

Watch our video to find out more about using clinical service accreditation to improve clinical care:

Who benefits from clinical service accreditation?

We’ve created a range of visuals to explain the extent of clinical service accreditation benefits across the health economy.

You’re welcome to save and share these resources:

• Accreditation works for those who receive care
• Accreditation works for those who deliver care
• Accreditation works for those who govern care
• Accreditation works for those who commission care
• Accreditation works for those who regulate care
• Accreditation works for those who develop health policy

Research and publications 

We’ve collated some resources relating to accreditation research including in other health systems. Please contact us if you are aware of resources that could be included for the benefit of the clinical service accreditation community in the United Kingdom.

• Accreditation as a driver of improvement and knowledge transfer
  This webinar from the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua) sets out to examine some challenges that may prevent us from getting the most out of accreditation; what impact we can expect from accreditation and what the evidence is for this.
• Improving Healthcare Quality in Europe: characteristics, effectiveness and implementation of different strategies
  This WHO Observatory publications includes a chapter on External institutional strategies: accreditation, certification, supervision includes a recent review of evidence for external assessment in general.
• Development of the European quality assurance scheme for breast cancer services
• Effect of certification and accreditation of hospitals in Norway
  Please note this is a multilingual document – scroll down for the English language version

Keeping in touch

If you would like to find out more, speak to a member of HQIP’s accreditation team or subscribe to our quarterly CSA newsletter email [email protected].