Code of Practice Update
TSA are pleased to advise that we have now appointed a Standards Director, who has been co-opted to the Board of Directors. Alan Clark will be joining with immediate effect and will take up the position of Chair of the Standards Steering Board. The main aim of the new board will be to complete the review of the current Code of Practice and complete an alignment of other bodies and develop a standards framework fit for purpose to support the evolution of Technology Enabled Care Services. The Steering Board will have strategic representation from commissioners, health and social care, technical standards and other regulatory bodies and representation from carers and service users.
Alan joins the TSA Board with a wealth of experience in auditing and fulfilled a similar role some years ago with TSA. Alan has roots in commissioning roles and will bring a new dimension to the Code of Practice and is looking forward to this challenging opportunity.
After a number of years serving as our Accreditation body, NSI’s contract will come to an end on 31 August 2015, TSA has been considering a number of options to fulfil the role of inspection body from 1 September 2015 and we have decided that as an interim arrangement we will administer the audit process in-house. So that the Audits remain completely independent we will contract directly with three consultant auditors, all of whom have a service delivery background. This will ensure that the audits continue in a similar way but believe that this will give us a greater control and ensure greater consistency. We know members have been asking for a structure like this for some time and we feel this interim arrangement will give TSA the opportunity to evaluate the efficacy of the Audit arrangements and ensure that the Code of Practice is fit for purpose for the years to come.
Longer term options, such as re-tendering, are under consideration but due to the fact that the code is currently under review, we have decided that it is more appropriate to initiate this action when TSA completes the comprehensive review and, importantly, the new revised code is approved by the Board and Members.
You will be aware that NSI hold UKAS accreditation, which means that they can accredit to British and European standards as well as the TSA code of practice. However, during this interim phase, we will not be able to accredit organisations to BS EN 50134, the European standard. We will still be able to conduct audits against the standard and indicate that organisations have demonstrated compliance, but will not be able to issue accreditation. If a member has concerns regarding this, please feel free to contact Paul Finch for further discussions. Platinum status will not be affected.
For those organisations that are due their audits between the 1st of September and 31st December 2015, including those due to have their European Standard audit, we will be making contact shortly to make arrangements for your auditor to attend and carry out your audit.
We have spoken to a lot of members and non-members about progress on the review at recent events and have also sought suggestions where further work is needed.
In addition to previous work, we have commissioned a line by line review of the checklist and code documents, which is nearing completion and hope that this work will provide a streamlining of the audit process.
Next steps are to:
- Decide on membership of the Code of Practice Steering Board, the group terms of reference and governance.
- Consider the audit process itself, to see if this can be made less cumbersome for members, using remote systems for annual audits and pre-work for full/application audits.
- Formalise a process for passporting accreditations from other standards and vice versa.
- Agree timescales for finalisation of the review plan and develop an action plan.
We anticipate a lot of this work will be done by the TSA conference in November 2015, with a view to full implementation by March 2016. We will then be in a position to articulate the future direction of the code.
Our aim is to develop a framework that evolves over time that can absorb new services and new innovation as they come to the fore and to avoid future “Big Bang” changes we all find challenging.
This is an exciting time for TSA and a huge opportunity to enhance and evolve our Standard to meet the needs of the Technology Enabled Care Services Sector.
For more information, please contact Paul Finch via [email protected]
