To celebrate the service at Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust being awarded accreditation earlier in the year we sat down with Dr Hyder Hussaini to hear about their services accreditation journey.

KT: How did the accreditation process benefit your service? Were there any unintended benefits? 

HH: We were able to consciously review our service as a whole and take stock of existing processes we have in place. It was a great way for us to review our service; what we were doing well with and where we could improve as well as exploring new developments.

The website development was a massive thing for our service, as that's the centralized information it forces us to look into an annual process of service development.

KT: How did you keep your team on track and motivated? 

HH: We allocated specialist roles to individuals eg collecting patient feedback. We held regular meetings to update on the accreditation process and the team had the opportunity to make suggestions.

Interestingly, by starting this process it helped us realise the resources we have available within our Trust.

KT: How did the team feel when they were awarded? What does it mean to you?

HH: Well, I was very proud, and everybody felt really valued and that was a key thing. It was also confirmation that your service has made a national standard and that you and your team are doing something positive.

KT: What did you find challenging about the process?

HH: COVID did put this process on hold for us and then our main priority was service recovery. However we were well supported from the IQILS team felt that they wanted us to succeed.

Developing data collections and reviewing documentation can also be time consuming, so do be prepared to allocate adequate time for this.  

KT: What advice or top tips would you give other services on their accreditation journey?

HH: When you are reviewing the evidence required, do be aware that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel as many documents would be available through your Trust’s governance or you can contact the IQILS team for examples.

Keep up communication with the rest of your team and support each other.

Never give up, remember that all services are functional, and you will already have a system in place, and you are looking to fill in any gaps, formally describe your current process and plan for service improvement.

We want to thank Dr Hyder Hussaini who took the time to speak to Katy Thistlethwaite, our IQILS programme coordinator. We'll be creating more of these blogs in the future, so look out for them!