Preparing for a QSF audit
An Auditor’s View
Jane Turner-Bragg previously worked as Head of Service, Older People for Bromford Housing Group. Now she is one of TEC Quality’s QSF auditors.
Here she explains how the standards framework can promote business improvement.
Quality Standards Framework. So what? This is the best question any leader can ask in their business.
‘So what’ if we make a few mistakes; ‘So what’ if we don’t have time to look at every complaint; ‘So what’ if we didn’t get it right first time; ‘So what’ if that commissioner thinks we didn’t offer best value for money.
In this sector the products are largely the same - it’s the scale; the price; the opportunity; the commitment to improve; the innovation and the service that are different.
Wherever you are in the market, whatever your strategy and vision for the future, what will mark you out is that you have the essential ingredients sorted – simple.
- Demand high standards
- Ensure excellent outcomes
- Back it up with a superb service
That adage of ‘people forget what you say, people forget what you do, but people never forget how you made them feel’ is so true of this industry.
That’s where QSF can help.
The 10 modules cover the fundamental must do essentials for achieving excellence in your business, whether you are a provider or a supplier. They are not just for audit - they are a foundation tool for business development and service transformation.
They will help you design your vision of ‘what great looks like’ and ensure you know when you have achieved it.
Embedding QSF in your business will plot where you are on your journey, and what the next steps are. With the support of your TEC Quality Auditor it will ensure you ask yourself the right questions; accurately assess the status of your business and areas for improvement; enable you to prioritise/plan/achieve and then review outcomes.
As well as checking your progress, your Auditor will give your business advice about things that work well elsewhere.
So, in summary, the QSF will become a self-assessment tool to ensure you have a very clear picture of where you are and the journey you need to take. You don’t have to wait for your annual audit to look at QSF - you can use it every day. It can help you most if you adopt it as a ‘live’ plan and use it throughout the business to shape, flex, monitor and deliver your key priorities - the things that matter most to your customers, commissioners and partners.
You don’t have to be perfect to be excellent - but QSF will help you to know where your imperfections are so you can tackle them.
Jane Turner-Bragg
Business Consultant and TEC Quality Associate Auditor
A Service Provider’s View
Dudley Metropolitan Council's Telecare Service went through a QSF audit. Here they outline how Dudley prepared for the big day.
Positive relationships rarely start with a cool assessment of faults and failures.
The same goes for audits.
Like everything else in life audits can be good, bad or indifferent and many of us will have experienced several of them – positive and constructive at best, hugely dispiriting at worst.
Dudley Telecare Service maintained certification under the TSA Code of Practice for ten consecutive years before becoming one of the first organisations to successfully complete its new Quality Standards Framework (QSF). So what is the key to getting through the QSF?
For us, one of the most important messages about preparing for the audit is not to simply prepare for the audit. Running a quality service is an ongoing process, it doesn’t happen on one day. At Dudley Telecare we review our policies and procedures every 12 months and monitor our services on an ongoing basis because we want to improve and innovate year on year.
The QSF itself was an opportunity to sell our service – something we had never been able to do under the old Code of Practice regime. For the first time the auditors were willing to listen to what we had to say about our service and engage with staff.
We were able to talk about our outreach work, telecare surgeries and partnerships. We were able to demonstrate a golden thread of shared understanding from the chief officer to our apprentice. We were able to present evidence of a quality service and, quite rightly, be challenged on it. And we were able to share the results of a recent internal audit and demonstrate how we’d addressed the issues it raised.
But if the QSF is an opportunity to shine, it is also an opportunity to share. Among TSA members there is a lot of good practice and good news which needs to get out. We each have a wealth of information and all of us has something to offer others.
This peer to peer learning is vital for individual organisations, TSA and the industry as a whole.
If we, as a sector, want people to know what technology enabled care is all about we need to demonstrate good practice and high standards. That means learning from our mistakes by being
Interested in QSF? We’re here to help!
We want to know your needs exactly so that we can provide the perfect solution. Let us know what you want and we’ll do our best to help.
To book an appointment with one of our team, or to have an informal discussion about how QSF certification can help your organisation fill in our simple on-line enquiry form
