This year, my medical aesthetic practice was scrutinised by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) (www.ukas.com).
For those who do not know, UKAS is the national accreditation body for the UK, appointed by the Government to independently assess organisations. UKAS provides internationally recognised certification, testing and inspection services for health. We were required by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and UKAS to undergo a robust process and reach a certain required standard of competence through the UKAS accreditation service. Alongside a regional nursing colleague, this was a process that I navigated via the three stages of inspection, from self-declaration to approval through to accreditation in order to provide a private COVID-19 testing service to our patients and the general public.
Accreditation drives confidence in all sectors, from industry to health. We were assessed and are now accredited to ISO 15189:2012 and ISO 22870:2016 to provide a safe and competent service. This is now linked to our quality management system (QMS). UKAS underpins everything they do with quality, and now we do, too. So, if patient safety is king, then quality is queen.
Quality is the degree of excellence of something. Quality really, yes really, matters, because it supports patient safety; it creates and maintains a safe culture, and it is well evidenced that safe working practices result in safer patient journeys, and it is these quality standards that drive improvement forward.
While I was going through the UKAS process, I was mindful of and reflected on our aesthetic clinical practice and realised that we were only just scratching the surface of measuring the quality of our own service, and, when measuring our service quality, it was largely by using patient feedback alone. Comments, grievances and complaints are a good indicator of quality, but they are just one level of what underpins and defines a competent service with a QMS.
Professional judgement, safety, competence, standards, scope and accountability are words we frequently hear, but where is the word ‘quality’? It is the one word that I do not hear in my aesthetic spaces. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Code (2018) makes just one single reference to quality: ‘work with colleagues to evaluate the quality of your work’.
So, where exactly is the quality in nursing? I suggest that the word quality is absent from medical aesthetics, and I encourage aesthetic nurses to introduce a QMS and explore the resources available via the UKAS. Whether you are just starting out or have been nurturing your practice all these years, take some time to ask yourself how you are currently assessing the quality of your aesthetic service and what you can do now to strive to improve quality. This year, my New Year message to readers would be that, as we tuck into the Quality Street tin, we spare a thought on how we put some quality into aesthetics, and it is nurses who are best placed to lead on this, as we continue to drive forward the patient safety agenda.
Here's to a healthy and safe 2022, and please save a green triangle for me.