QIS2012 - The Standard for Health Management Programmes and Interventions is the new Standard developed by QISMET which will be universally applicable and therefore offers providers of newer programmes the opportunity to apply for certification
QISMET is to get up to £335,000 to test and develop innovative approaches to improve health and wellbeing, Care Services Minister Paul Burstow announced.
The need for – and benefit of – quality assured self management education and training provision for people living with long term conditions has long been recognised by those working in the field, ie third sector organisations, Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), people living with long term conditions and health care professionals. In 2008, after a cross-sector consultation showed a clear preference for the establishment of an independent body to oversee the quality and certification of self management, a group of key people and organisations in this field came together as the Quality Institute Steering Group.
The Steering Group's aim was to address the challenge of assuring the quality of self management programme provision for people with long-term conditions by defining good standards and developing the process for certifying organisations which satisfactorily meet the required standards.
The Steering Group included representatives from leading voluntary and not for profit sector providers - including The Expert Patients Programme Community Interest Company (EPP CIC), Arthritis Care, Diabetes UK and Macmillan Cancer Support - who worked together to provide collective support and resources which laid the foundations for the establishment of an independent Quality Institute (QI) to be responsible for developing standards and certification processes for organisations which provide any self management programmes.
Following extensive consultation, a business plan was developed which set out proposals to establish an independent Quality Institute for Self Management Education and Training (QISMET), which would bring a wider range of providers, commissioners and people with long-term conditions together to help meet this need. An expanded QI Steering Group was established to take forward this work which, in addition to the four providers above, included representation from volunteer tutors and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs).
In its first year, QISMET focused on developing a quality mark certification process for organisations providing lay led self management courses based on the Stanford University Chronic Disease Self Management Programme (CDSMP) using the standards in Stepping Stones to Quality (SS2Q). This certification scheme went 'live' in the West Midlands in 2009, where a number of PCTs have made certification via QISMET an essential criterion for commissioning organisations that provide CDSMP courses.
In April 2010 QISMET trained its first 12 auditors who subsequently conducted the first QISMET certifications ever undertaken for the West Midlands providers.
We are now able to accept applications for QISMET certification to providers of Stanford-based courses elsewhere in England.
QISMET is currently undertaking a number of other important projects including the development of QISMET certification of Diabetes Self Management Education Programme providers which will be piloted Autumn 2011. A second cohort of auditors, to undertake the first certifications of organisations participating in this pilot was trained in spring 2011.
Our next project will be the development of QISMET standards that will be 'universal' for providers of all types of self management programmes.
