Why accreditation is important

• Services are able to demonstrate the quality of care they provide to service users and carers, their wider organisation and commissioners.
  
• Services are able to demonstrate that they meet national guidelines and standards.
  
• The Care Quality Commission uses ECTAS accreditation as one of the information sources it uses to direct its inspection activities in its core standards assessment of mental health services.
  
• Information from the accreditation process can be used in Trust quality accounts, as recommended by the National Quality Board.
  
• Achievement of accredited status may support services to reduce their financial contribution to the NHSLA.
  
• Our process helps to build dialogue with referrers, partner agencies and commissioners.
  
• Our standards and assessment process can provide a framework to monitor contracts and develop service level agreements.
  
• Learning and innovations are often spread beyond the participating service to other services within the organisation.

Benefits of the accreditation process

Our accreditation process supports services to evaluate their performance and improve their practice through:

• Self review of their service.
  
• Peer review identifying and discussing challenges with the visiting reviewers.
  
• A detailed team report recognising areas of achievement and suggesting approaches to improvement.
  
• Organised visits to other services supported by an experienced lead reviewer.
  
• A report of national findings identifying trends and enabling benchmarking with other services.
  
• Regular newsletters updating members on developments within the network.
  
• Our email discussion group providing access to experienced and knowledgeable professionals from a range of disciplines.
  
• Personal development of staff through training in peer reviewing and visiting another service(s).