Core standards for mental health services

The CCQI core standards promote high quality mental health care and seek to reduce variations in patient experience.

They are used across the College’s quality and accreditation networks. Each network uses the set of standards most relevant to them (i.e. inpatient or community) and then adds specialist standards that ae specific to the service type that they work with.

The first edition of the core standards was published in 2014 as a result of work CCQI did with the British Standards Institution (BSI). The fourth edition of the standards was published in early 2022 and includes a focus on promoting equitable access, experience and outcomes for patients and carers and sustainability in mental health care.