Stages to IQIPs accreditation

UKAS can support diagnostic services at any stage of their journey towards meeting the IQIPS-standard-2023 and UKAS accreditation.

Prior to application:

• There is the IQIPS Standard Awareness course available at anytime to provide an understanding for customers or potential assessors on the requirements of the standard, with examples and lived experiences.
• There is the IQIPS 2023 readiness self assessment tool, which can be used to determine how ready you might be to meet the standard requirements. However, we wouldn’t want this to put organisations off applying if they are currently rated red.

For more specialised direct support, the only caveat is to ensure you make an application to UKAS to become a customer.  When you have made an application, you will be assigned an Assessment Manager to work with you to progress through accreditation, no matter where you are in your journey.

• There will soon (late 2024) be an assisted application set of e-learning and modules to help you prepare for assessment included in your application.
• You can have a benchmarking assessment, which is an in-depth review of the current status of your quality management system. This can include direct observation of practice to support a full gap analysis to determine progression requirements.  The benchmarking can be limited to the management system only onsite or remote, depending on your needs.  However, it is more beneficial to have the full assessment, which mirrors an initial assessment process, but without any formal recommendation, and provides a full detailed report to give areas to develop.  This is a fully supporting approach to gain a real insight across your service activities.
• You can decide to have a pre-assessment, which is a higher level scan of the quality management system, where UKAS would just determine what systems you have in place without reviewing the full detail of these. This is a small dive into the core areas for conformity, and allows the organisation to discuss and understand the accreditation process and ask questions to help them determine any gaps before agreeing the initial assessment timeframe.
• If you feel you meet the requirements of the standard, you can just go straight for initial assessment.

UKAS are here to discuss any assessment requirements you may have, and can provide estimates for different assessment approaches or accreditation cycle costs if business cases and funding are required.

For further details, please contact laura.booth@ukas.com