We recently completed our audit for the ISO 9001 Quality Management System standard – and we’re proud to say we passed with flying colours.
In this blog post, the team that secured our top marks reflects on the key practices of our quality management approach.
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ISO 9001 is the trusted quality management system standard that requires businesses to implement robust quality control processes to improve their products, services and ways of working.
Ethical Healthcare was recently audited by BSI to assess our compliance with the ISO 9001 standard. Following a very thorough review, the auditor found no areas for improvement and commended our quality team for its application of the standard.
Anne Wright, an ISO specialist from AWTBS, helped us through the audit and believes quality management success comes from fully committing to the process. “If you’re going to do it, do it properly. Ethical lives by its standards and that came across massively in its ISO 9001 audit.
“The quality management team sailed through a robust audit because it was confident that it had documented every process and knew its quality practices inside out.”
Reflecting on this fantastic result, the team identified a 3-step approach to quality management success.
Step 1: Develop a quality strategy
We took quality seriously and developed a quality management strategy.
The strategy sets out our commitment to quality standards – and is endorsed and reviewed at board level.
It outlines how each of our policies will be implemented and describes the processes to ensure they are managed effectively.
Part of the strategy was to provide a dedicated resource to achieve our quality standard certification. Our team met monthly to manage the process and ensure we were on track with our strategic objectives.
Step 2: Create a quality culture
Quality management is embedded at every level of our business.
It’s overseen by a team of quality specialists, but every single person in our organisation understands their role in quality management and has a clear set of responsibilities for ensuring we maintain standards.
Our quality culture starts with a document library that records all policies and procedures across the business. It’s accessible to everyone in our organisation.
We communicate with staff regularly about quality management so everyone is aware of our commitments and the processes they need to follow. This is supported by ongoing training to ensure procedures are completed robustly.
Step 3: Write a quality handbook
Quality documents are dense by nature. They have to be detailed to be effective. But they are not easy to use on a day-to-day basis.
We wrote a quality handbook to make our policies and procedures as accessible as possible. It contains the key elements of each policy and easy-to-follow instructions for complying with them.
The handbook is a go-to resource for colleagues across our business and an essential tool for ensuring everyone has clear and accessible quality guidance at their fingertips.
Quality management standards are fully embedded in our business and a core part of Ethical’s culture. Our commitment to managing the quality of everything we do ensures we can deliver outstanding services to our clients and the best employee experience to our colleagues.
Get in touch
If you’d like more information about our quality management approach, please contact Judy Smith at judy@ethicalhealthcare.org.uk.