Standards and Accreditation of Services


Rationale and background

Assessment of performance against rigorous standards provides the basis for accreditation and helps to drive continuous improvement in the quality of services. The report, Standards for Better Health (2006)(1) requires a rigorous approach to assessment and accreditation of providers of National Health Service (NHS) services. Lord Darzi’s High Quality Care for All: NHS Next Stage Review (2008) (2) confirms Government support for provider accreditation schemes in the NHS.

Standards are expected for services that provide for the healthcare of people of working age, many of which operate outside of the NHS. Dame Carol Black’s review Working for a Healthier Tomorrow (2008) (3) advocates clear standards of practice and formal accreditation of all providers who support people of working age. The lack of standards and accreditation was highlighted consistently in responses to her call for evidence from the Faculty of Occupational Medicine, the Society of Occupational Medicine and other organisations.

In August 2008 the Faculty of Occupational Medicine invited stakeholders to join a working group to develop standards and a system of voluntary accreditation for occupational health services in the UK. Stakeholders included representatives from occupational medical and nursing professional bodies, commercial occupational health providers, employer and worker representative bodies and government departments and regulators.

Draft standards were published on the Faculty’s website on 24th June 2009 for formal consultation, inviting comments by 31st August 2009. 28 people responded to that formal consultation. The standards were pilot tested with 17 different providers of occupational health services from different sectors and of different sizes in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

The draft standards were modified in light of feedback and the pilot tests. The standards will be modified further with time as a commitment to continual improvement and to accommodate changes in professional guidance and best practice.

The standards are being introduced one year ahead of the launch of the accreditation scheme. This will permit occupational health services to acquaint themselves with the standards and start to put systems in place to collect the evidence required for the accreditation process.

The standards and system of voluntary accreditation for occupational health services aim to:

  1. enable services to identify the standards of practice to which they should aspire;
  2. credit good work being done by high quality occupational health services, providing independent validation that they satisfy standards of quality
  3. raise standards where they need to be raised; and
  4. help purchasers differentiate occupational health services that attain the desired standards from those that do not.

These measures should help to raise the overall standard of care provided by occupational health services in the United Kingdom, thus helping to make a meaningful difference to the health of people of working age.

1. Standards for Better Health. Department of Health. 2006.
2. High Quality Care for All: NHS Next Stage Review. Department of Health. 2008.
3. Working for a Healthier Tomorrow. The Stationery Office. 2008.
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