Progress update on Medical Engineering and Physical Sciences Accreditation Project
There has been good progress joint project between the Academy and IPEM to develop Accreditation standards and systems for Medical Engineering and Physical Sciences services
Following on from the launch meeting on the 9 January 2013 the project steering group have approved a number of key elements for the project.
- The decision to develop an accreditation standard linked to ISO 15189 and extending the scope of this standard to the required services has been widely welcomed. Whilst discussions are still on-going an assurance that services attaining accreditation under this will also be deemed to be compliant with ISO 9001:2012 is seen as an important pre-requisite to avoid duplication of effort, multiple audit visits and additional cost. An extended mapping exercise has been completed between the existing IQIPS standard and ISO 15189:2012 that provides an assurance that an approach broadly based upon the IQIPS standard will deliver the linkage required. Discussions are being held with the British Standards Institute to formalize the standards development process and to ensure that the link to the international standard will be accepted by the wider standards community.
- The standard will be developed across 4 domains as follows:- Management, Facilities, Resources and Workforce; Safety and Risk Management; Service User Experience, Clinical Scientific Service.
- A set of 30 core standards have been agreed and will be used initially within these four domains to develop assessment criteria to support the accreditation process. The initial proposal was to undertake a public consultation on the standards during February and March 2014, however, this has been postponed until the associated criteria are developed and is planned for July 2014.
- IPEM will initially develop criteria and guidance for the following specialities; EBME including renal services; Rehabilitation Engineering and Biomechanics; Radiotherapy, Nuclear Medicine/Radiopharmacy, Radiation Safety/Diagnostic Radiology Physics. Additional streams will be added as future deliverables. A Standards Advisory Group is being assembled together with working groups to deliver of the criteria. Expressions of interest in joining these groups should be sent in the first instance to marie@ipem.ac.uk.
- There is a need for the project to ensure that there is appropriate public/patient involvement in the standard development process.
- The appointment of an Accreditation Body has been postponed pending an agreement on the structure of the accreditation standard. This will be needed to inform the tendering process.
Feedback and comments have been received from a range of stakeholder and this engagement is welcome. The Academy will be undertaking another round of stakeholder meetings to ensure that there is a clear understanding of the scope of the project and avoid duplication of effort and workload on participating departments.
