The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) has granted the first accreditation for Ophthalmic and Vision Science to Moorfields Eye Hospital. The award was made to the Electrophysiology Department at Moorfields under the Improving Quality In Physical Services (IQIPS) programme.
IQIPS is a professionally-led accreditation scheme, designed to improve the quality of care, safety and service for patients undergoing physiological tests, examinations and procedures. Accreditation for IQIPS is assessed against standards which address five quality domains of Patient Experience, Clinical, Safety and Facilities, Resources and Workforce, and Leadership and Management.
On receiving the award, Louisa Wickham, Moorfields medical director and national clinical director for eye care said: “Moorfields Eye Hospital is recognised as a world leader in ophthalmic research and healthcare provision. Achieving UKAS accreditation against the IQIPS standard reflects the Electrophysiology department’s hard work, expertise and dedication to delivering high standards of care to all our patients. Considered a professional badge of honour, UKAS accreditation adds an important layer of independent and impartial evaluation of our services, increasing patient confidence in the quality of care they receive.”
The Electrophysiology team at Moorfields Eye Hospital.
Kerry Tinkler, director of clinical support services at Moorfields added: “Achieving IQIPS accreditation for our electrophysiology department is another milestone in our journey to provide the highest of standards for our patients across all of our clinical support services. Being the first vision science service in the UK to achieve this is testimony to the hard work and dedication of the team and our quality manager. I am so proud of what they have achieved, truly a world leading service.”
In addition to Ophthalmic and Vision Science, the IQIPS programme encompasses Clinical Neurophysiology, Audiology, Cardiac Physiology, Gastrointestinal Physiology, Respiratory & Sleep Physiology, Urodynamics and Vascular Science. The important contribution IQIPS makes to improving healthcare provision and the quality of patient outcomes is recognised by NHS England, NHS Improvement and the Care Quality Commission.
Congratulating Moorfields on its achievement Laura Booth, Senior Assessment Manager and Technical Focus Person for IQIPS at UKAS said: “UKAS accreditation already underpins the quality of a wide variety of healthcare services in both the public and private sector. This first award for Ophthalmic and Vision Science completes the roll out of the IQIPS programme to cover all eight physiological science disciplines. Sixty-eight healthcare providers are currently accredited under the IQIPS programme, with over 100 differing disciplines participating in the scheme, improving the quality of physiology services for hundreds of thousands of patients each year.”
The Electrophysiology team at Moorfields Eye Hospital.
Jointly launched by UKAS and The Royal College of Physicians in 2012, the IQIPS programme has been solely managed and run by UKAS since April 2017. The IQIPS standard itself continues to be developed and owned by the professional bodies that represent the eight physiology disciplines as part of the Accreditation Clinical Advisory Group (ACAG). Updated versions of the IQIPS standard were published in 2020 and 2023, which included revisions that better maps IQIPS to other medical standards covering medical laboratories (ISO 15189), medical physics and clinical engineering (BS 70000) and diagnostic imaging, as well as CQC Key Lines of Enquiry.
