The ISO Standards to boost your Care Home business and CQC rating
If you want to show your commitment to the highest quality and safety standards, ISOs are your answer! These powerful tools provide best practice frameworks that not only help your business to excel but also help you to consistently meet the requirements of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) outcomes. Sounds good, right? Well, to find out more about these business boosting Standards, we’ve asked the experts at one of UK’s leading ISO certification bodies, Citation, to share everything there is to know.
What exactly is ISO certification and why does it matter?
Think of an ISO as the best way of doing something! The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) develops and publishes Standards that outline best practices, as agreed on by experts from around the world, in thousands of different areas of business. This makes ISO certification one of the best ways of demonstrating your business’ services and processes are world-class in quality, safety, and efficiency.
By becoming ISO certified you can continuously improve what you do and how you do it. You’ll have a ‘plan, do and review’ process in place to help you sustain improvements and positive outcomes for those in your business and care.
How does ISO certification benefit the care sector?
Achieving ISO certification can provide big benefits to businesses in the care sector, including:
- Retaining or improving your regulatory rating
- Maintaining and improving the quality of your service delivery
- Improving record keeping and governance
- Reducing your environmental impact
- Winning more tenders and business
- Streamlining and saving costs in a difficult climate
- Boosting staff morale and increasing productivity
Now you know how ISO certification can benefit your business, let’s take a look at the top Standards for your business.
Top ISO Standards for the care sector
ISO 45001 - Health & Safety
ISO 45001 is the occupational Health & Safety management system Standard designed to reduce workplace accidents and ill health. With thousands of workplace injuries and illnesses occurring every year leading to millions of lost working days and huge costs for businesses, ISO 45001 is here to make real difference. It’s the go-to Standard to show you’re committed to reducing risks and hazards to anyone that steps foot in your business, improving your Health & Safety performance, reducing incidents and preventing costly disruptions.
Achieving certification will show you follow Health & Safety best practices and reduce breaches of legislation – avoiding those hefty fines. You can manage your Health & Safety responsibilities to protect your people, your reputation and promote a culture of safety. It can even help you win more business – you’ll stand out as an industry leader with certification that’s recognised worldwide!
ISO 9001- Quality improvement
Want to show you’re committed to delivering quality service? ISO 9001 sets the standard for a quality management system and helps to demonstrate your organisation’s commitment to quality and customer satisfaction. In fact, many care organisations choose to implement ISO 9001 as it enhances their ability to meet their clients’ needs. It also helps you to drive continual improvements that will benefit your business, employees, and clients.
The ISO 9001 Standard allows you to develop a management system that’s tailored to your structure, culture, and processes. So, you can build on what you already do and maximise efficiency with well-defined processes and practices that will boost productivity and reduce costs — transforming your operations into a well-oiled machine.
ISO 14001 – Sustainability
ISO 14001 is the environmental management system Standard designed to help you reduce your impact on the environment and adopt more sustainable practices. Reducing waste and being more efficient with resources will help you showcase your commitment for environmental sustainability. One of the expectations in the new CQC framework!
Not to mention, it will help you save costs, keep up to speed with current legislation and improve those all-important green credentials.
Employee morale
ISO Standards help maintain the quality of service delivery and can improve employee morale by working towards one goal (everyone’s singing from the same hymn sheet!). Plus, with ISO 45003 – the world’s first Standard to address psychological health in the workplace, you can follow best practice guidance to support your employees’ mental health and wellbeing and reduce workplace stress.
Ready to find out more about how ISO certification can transform your business? Click here to contact our partner Citation.
