Community equipment provider achieves new accreditation to demonstrate advanced levels of safety and quality

Medequip Assistive Technology, a community equipment specialist, is the first commercial organisation in the UK to receive a new accreditation for the Technology Enabled Care (TEC) industry.

Highlighting its commitment to providing safe and compliant services, the new accreditation will help Medequip reinforce its quality standards through having its performance audited and verified by a wide range of parameters.

TEC Services refers to a range of assistive health and care technologies, including telecare, environmental controls and telemedicine, that enable clients to benefit from the correct technology that meets their specific needs.

The new accreditation was developed by TEC Quality in coordination with NAEP (National Association of Equipment Providers), which focuses on community equipment services.

TEC Quality manages the Quality Standards Framework (QSF) on behalf of the TEC industry representative body: the TEC Services Association (TSA). The QSF is a set of outcome-based standards developed in partnership with key stakeholders across the TEC sector.

According to Medequip, the accreditation is an important step forward in enabling providers and suppliers to demonstrate advanced levels of safety and quality to commissioners and service users, concentrating primarily on outcomes rather than checklist-driven auditing procedures.

For Medequip, the outcomes-based approach enabled an independent auditing process across the whole journey of the individual receiving the service.

“We believe this step is revolutionary to setting the standards in our industry sector,” said Marie Martinalli, Head of SHEQ (Safety, Health, Environment and Quality) and Governance and Training for Medequip. “Completing the NAEP module gave us a 360o view of exactly what we do as a company, identifying key areas where Medequip already had plans in place to deliver continual improvements.“

Accreditation to TEC Quality standards is not yet a prerequisite for community equipment service providers, but provides an important opportunity for an independent audit of the services delivered by the company and of its own internal audit processes.

Medequip is also accredited to CECOPS (Community Equipment Code of Practice Scheme).