What are the revised Health and Social Care ISQua Standards?

A revision to the 6th edition of the “Guidelines and Principles for the Development of Health and Social Care Standards” was announced at the 2024 ISQua conference in Istanbul in September. The Pre-Conference meeting of ISQua’s External Evaluation Association introduced a revision to the 6th edition of the Principles for Standards Assessments with expected publication in 2025. (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/isqua-eea-insights-december-2024-isqua-eea-54nme/)  

There are three new exciting chapters including Sustainable Care, Digital Care and AI Systems and Supporting the Care Workforce.  

These are the standards which accreditation bodies need to include in their standards, to influence improvements across health and care providers.  

Sustainable Care 

This is a new standard and reflects the growing emphasis and importance of healthcare providers addressing their environmental impact and reducing their carbon footprint. 

The standard covers the following: 

• Strategic review of the environmental impact of service provision. 

• Approach and goals for sustainable care. 

• Responsible stewardship of resources. 

• Managing energy. 

• Assessment of carbon footprint and reduction of greenhouse gases. 

• Resilience to major environmental, climate or health emergencies. 

CHKS has already recognised that organisations are increasingly aware of their environmental impact and is encouraging this through the introduction of the CHKS Green Award to support and encourage organisations on this journey. 

Digital and AI Systems 

This new standard recognises advancements in digital care and technologies and covers the following: 

• Requirements for data security, managing cyber-attack and disaster recovery. 

• Process for assessment, costing, implementation and ongoing management of digital care. 

• Equity of access. 

• Access to technical expertise to support systems. 

• Consulting with staff before systems are introduced and training to support systems. 

• Evaluation of systems to mitigate risks. 

• Definition of accountability arrangements. 

• Information for patients. 

This includes approaches such as the use of apps, wearable devices, surgical robots, virtual consultations and AI systems for rules-based algorithms and machine learning. 

CHKS are introducing a new standard on Digital Health Technologies, this will be included in the new 2025 standards. 

Supporting the Care Workforce 

This new standard looks at supporting staff and recognising the essential role of a healthy and motivated workforce. This new standard includes: 

• Protection of staff health and safety. 

• Investigation and resolution of workplace issues. 

• Protecting staff from violence and aggression. 

• Gaining feedback from the workforce on their experience. 

• Monitoring and data analysis on work-related sick leave and reasons for leaving. 

• Monitoring, reviewing and responding to equality, diversity, inclusion and equity, in recruitment, work allocation, scheduling and promotion. 

• Support for workforce wellbeing and psychological safety. 

The CHKS standards on human resource management and education, training and development of staff already recognise the essential role that valued staff provide and how engagement, development and support opportunities can help to maintain and grow a dynamic team to support service delivery. 

Recognising that the CHKS Standards for Health and Care Providers are accredited by ISQua until 2027, these new Principles will become embedded into the CHKS standards as part of our development programme acknowledging these important steps in advancing healthcare delivery.