As the Covid-19 pandemic took hold across the globe, healthcare providers had to quickly adapt to changing work structures and practices to save lives. In the UK, for the NHS and private sector healthcare providers this meant converting existing wards into facilities for patients with Covid-19 wards following standard operating procedures.
With the scale and speed of the pandemic increasing rapidly, many trusts have found they have been chasing a moving target when it comes to providing the resources and space needed to ensure high-level patient care for patients diagnosed with Covid-19. Private providers stepped in to help support to fight the virus, they too have adapted to working in a way they have never worked before at both speed and scale.
Accreditation and quality management systems help to drive success
Flexibility and the ability to quickly adapt to rapidly changing circumstances has been the key to success across all areas of healthcare, not just the NHS. Organisations that have been awarded Capita’s CHKS accreditation have found they are more flexible to changes and adaptation in this pandemic environment.
Accreditation makes organisational change easier because systems are in place to highlight strengths and weaknesses and where change has been a success. By providing the mechanism for general quality improvement, it helps providers to gain overall improvement.
The accreditation process encourages healthcare organisations to think more broadly about organisational-wide policies and procedures. As a result, accredited organisations had a head start in enabling change and did not have to start from scratch, creating new standards, policies, and procedures.
Robust procedures reduce the stress of change
With accreditation comes the ability to drive culture change. Engaging and communicating with teams across all departments can ensure that everyone has the same message and knows what they are working towards.
Battling Covid-19 requires a huge team effort. Accreditation demands that trusts have robust policy and document control systems in place, which in turn has allowed for the timely adaptation, good communication and accurate record keeping that is vital when dealing with such a pandemic.
Similarly, departments within hospitals have had to re-orientate their policies and having everything in place to facilitate this has reduced the burden and unnecessary stress.
It is great to see the impact of having achieved these high standards through our accreditation programme, demonstrating high performance and resilience during these challenging times.
If you would like more information on CHKS Accreditation, please email info@chks.co.uk
