United Kingdom Accreditation Forum
Encyclopedia
Founded in June 1998 by a group of leading healthcare accreditation organisations, the United Kingdom Accreditation Forum (UKAF) is a London
-based network of healthcare accreditation
organisations formed with the intention of sharing experience regarding good practice in accreditation, as well as sharing new ideas around improving the methodology for such programmes. It has an additional role in working to ensure that the general public develop a clearer idea about accreditation, its function, its implications and its execution.
The aim of UKAF is to provide an effective network of organisations which operate or have a practical interest in developing standards-based assessment and accreditation programmes in healthcare.
The group meets quarterly, and is self-funding through annual organisational membership subscriptions.
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
-based network of healthcare accreditation
Hospital accreditation
Hospital accreditation has been defined as “A self-assessment and external peer assessment process used by health care organizations to accurately assess their level of performance in relation to established standards and to implement ways to continuously improve”...
organisations formed with the intention of sharing experience regarding good practice in accreditation, as well as sharing new ideas around improving the methodology for such programmes. It has an additional role in working to ensure that the general public develop a clearer idea about accreditation, its function, its implications and its execution.
The aim of UKAF is to provide an effective network of organisations which operate or have a practical interest in developing standards-based assessment and accreditation programmes in healthcare.
The group meets quarterly, and is self-funding through annual organisational membership subscriptions.
Remit
- cataloguing programmes and defining their products, both to users and to the general public
- encouraging the sharing of core developments between programmes
- mutual peer reviewPeer reviewPeer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
of accreditation programmes
- exploration of the peer reviewPeer reviewPeer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
techniques
- the recruitmentRecruitmentRecruitment refers to the process of attracting, screening, and selecting qualified people for a job. For some components of the recruitment process, mid- and large-size organizations often retain professional recruiters or outsource some of the process to recruitment agencies.The recruitment...
, training, monitoring and evaluation of surveyorsSurveyingSee Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...
- the mechanisms for awards of accredited status to organizations
- developing healthcare quality standards
- the implementation of standards within healthcare organizations
- self-regulation: to seek voluntary convergence of standards and of the operation of the assessment process
- to provide a mechanism for accreditation bodies to communicate with each other and, collectively, with others such as government departments, professional colleges and national associations, and commissioning, funding and insurance agencies
Member Accreditation Schemes
Members of UKAF include:- Accreditation for Acute Inpatient Mental Health Services (AIMS)
- Accreditation of Library and Information Services in the Health Sector
- AutismAutismAutism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...
Accreditation http://www.autism.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1820
- Better Services for People who Self-harmSelf-harmSelf-harm or deliberate self-harm includes self-injury and self-poisoning and is defined as the intentional, direct injuring of body tissue most often done without suicidal intentions. These terms are used in the more recent literature in an attempt to reach a more neutral terminology...
- Child Health Informatics Centre (CHIC)
- CHKS Healthcare Accreditation and Quality Unit
- Clinical Pathology Accreditation (UK) Ltd. (CPA) http://www.cpa-uk.co.uk/
- Community of Communities
- Electroconvulsive Therapy Accreditation Service (ECTAS)
- Health Promoting Hospitals and Trusts
- The Prescribing Observatory for Mental Health–UK (POMH-UK)
- QHA Trent AccreditationQHA Trent AccreditationQHA Trent Accreditation is a United Kingdom-based independent holistic accreditation scheme for hospitals and clinics that functions worldwide. It represents an option for healthcare providers to international accreditation schemes such as Joint Commission International from the USA...
- Quality Network for Forensic Mental Health Services
- Quality Improvement Network for Multi-agency Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
- Quality Network for In-Patient Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (QNIC)
- RDB Star Rating Ltd (Residential and Domiciliary Care Benchmarking)
See also
- International healthcare accreditationInternational healthcare accreditationDue to the near-universal desire for quality healthcare, there is a growing interest in international healthcare accreditation. Providing healthcare, especially of an adequate standard, is a complex and challenging process...
- Hospital accreditationHospital accreditationHospital accreditation has been defined as “A self-assessment and external peer assessment process used by health care organizations to accurately assess their level of performance in relation to established standards and to implement ways to continuously improve”...
- AccreditationAccreditationAccreditation is a process in which certification of competency, authority, or credibility is presented.Organizations that issue credentials or certify third parties against official standards are themselves formally accredited by accreditation bodies ; hence they are sometimes known as "accredited...
- Medical ethicsMedical ethicsMedical ethics is a system of moral principles that apply values and judgments to the practice of medicine. As a scholarly discipline, medical ethics encompasses its practical application in clinical settings as well as work on its history, philosophy, theology, and sociology.-History:Historically,...
- Clinical governanceClinical governanceClinical governance is the term used to describe a systematic approach to maintaining and improving the quality of patient care within a health system. The term became widely used in health care following the Bristol heart scandal in 1995, during which anaesthetist Dr Stephen Bolsin exposed the...