Wednesday 17 September 2025 marks World Patient Safety Day, a day to highlight a commitment to patient safety. The Royal College of Physicians' Accreditation Unit (AU) oversees a number of programmes which support services to improve patient care through accreditation. 

- endoscopy, Joint Advisory Group on GI Endoscopy (JAG) 
- primary immunodeficiency (QPIDS) 
- allergy (IQAS)
- pulmonary rehabilitation (PRSAS) 
- liver (IQILS)
- inpatient diabetes care (DCAP)

Accreditation helps improve, create, promote and empower services in providing better patient care. 

Insights from a lay assessor

By participating in accreditation, services are on an ongoing programme of quality improvement. During accreditation assessments, a lay assessor is assigned to focus on patient care and experience. Andy Hudson has been a lay assessor within the AU since 2013 and provided an insight into being a lay assessor and how this plays a vital role in supporting improving patient care.

‘Lay assessors have the unique benefit of being able to join assessments across different disciplines – and I have taken part in almost 80 assessments so far. As part of a site assessment l will speak to a selection of patients from the service to ask them about their experience, from simple details like confirming that they have received relevant documents related to their care, to their treatment pathway, including the level of consultation they’ve received from clinicians. I just want to hear about their experience in their own words and its an opportunity to hear about areas where a service could improve, which we ultimately feedback, but also aspects that have really benefited patients’.

‘One of the most valuable elements of an assessment is providing feedback to the service. Being able to give positive feedback from patients that clinicians wouldn’t usually hear is powerful; you can see what it means to the service as it’s been noted that lay assessor feedback is often referenced as a highlight. This reaffirms how much clinicians care about their patients and their desire to provide the best care possible'.

‘Thinking about my experiences over that time, one of the most exceptional assessments I have been involved in was also one of my most recent, when I visited the hepatology team at Aintree University Hospital on behalf of the IQILS programme. The team has been incredibly innovative in the ways that they have worked to support their patients. So many aspects of the service were exemplary, from their partnerships in their region to their seamless referral pathway. The Kirkby Cookbook, created with various collaborators, is an excellent resource providing low-cost, healthy recipes for patients, with a particular focus on liver disease. This is the element of accreditation that I’m so passionate about, improving patient care, and it’s really pleasing to see examples of best practice, which in turn can be used to inspire and inform other services working to improve – one of the many benefits of participating in an accreditation programme’. You can read the full blog here. 

A service perspective 

Many services feedback on the value of accreditation, and the IQAS team caught up with Dr Leyla Pur, an Allergy Consultant at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, on the importance of accreditation.

Leyla reflected, ‘since achieving accreditation, we have prioritised patient care and quality. We started measuring patient feedback more rigorously, creating patient surveys and collecting data through text messages. This feedback is discussed in our management meetings. Additionally, we have updated patient information leaflets and adopted best practices from other centres to improve our patient experience'. You can read the full blog here.

The accreditation standards and patient safety

All programmes within the AU will conduct 5-yearly reviews of their accreditation standards, to ensure they are kept up to date with any speciality specific national guidelines and remain appropriate, relevant and focus on the key issues services and patients face. The Quality Lead for PRSAS, Enya Daynes, shared ‘patient safety is at the heart of PRSAS, and we continue to develop our standards as the Pulmonary Rehabilitation landscape changes, paying consideration to changes in workforce and service delivery’. You can read the full blog here.

On the 1 July 2025 the JAG accreditation programme launched their new JAG paediatric standards that were developed by the British Society of Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (BSPGHAN).

The paediatric global rating scale (pGRS) for endoscopy has been developed for use throughout the UK and beyond to underpin all aspects of a high-quality endoscopy service including clinical quality, safety, patient experience, the environment and the workforce. The creation of these standards has shown the dedication from the community to ensure the delivery of great quality care for its patients. You can contact the JAG office for further information on the pGRS via askjag@rcp.ac.uk.

The Accreditation Unit would like to thank all who contributed to this blog. If you would like to learn more about the Accreditation Unit, please contact the team via accreditation@rcp.ac.uk.