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.
We aim to address the initial questions which you may have. However, if you have a question which isn’t addressed here, please contact QISMET by emailing admin@qismet.org.uk and we will be pleased to answer your query. Many thanks.
Why is QISMET developing a Universal Standard?
Please see the Background section on the Briefing page.
Why are organisations which deliver self management and self care programmes certificated and not the programmes themselves?
Certification will apply to providers delivering self management and self care programmes/courses/interventions and not the programmes themselves for a number of reasons:
Many organisations will offer more than one programme/course/intervention – it would be prohibitively expensive to ask organisations to have to gain certification for each different programme it provides.
Some programmes/interventions have their own quality frameworks relating to the content, training and delivery of the course/programme/intervention – in these circumstances QISMET certification for the programme itself could potentially be seen as an unnecessary and unwelcome duplication.
Delivering high quality effective programmes in a locality depends on many variables which are not directly related to the self management or self care programme/course/intervention itself. These variables, such as accessibility of the programme to local people living with long term conditions, for example, will be covered in the standards which are currently being developed by QISMET.
Would QISMET Certificate a Self management or self care Programme/course/intervention?
QISMET has been approached by several organisations now asking if it will specifically develop a standard and certification for self management or self care programmes/courses/interventions, in terms of philosophy, development process, design, content, educator/facilitator/tutor training and quality framework. Developing specific standards for self management and self care programmes is under consideration by QISMET but producing the Universal Standard is its current development priority.
It must be stressed that certification of the programme/course/intervention itself would be entirely separate to any certification that an organisation would hold as a provider of the programme for the reasons given in answer to the question above.
Will providers still be able to be certificated against QISMET’s other existing Standards (DSME Standard and SS2Q) once the Universal Standard is launched?
Yes – QISMET has no plans currently to withdraw certification against either of its existing Standards. The most appropriate standard to be certificated against will be determined partly by the provider’s service profile, i.e. which types of self management or self care interventions it delivers. In some cases it may be possible for a provider to be certificated against more than one standard. In this situation the provider will choose which Standard to be certificated against.
Will it be possible to move over to certification by the Universal Standard for providers which are already certificated against existing Standards?
It will be possible to ‘migrate’ to the Universal Standard from other existing Standards. The provider and QISMET will work together to arrange the most appropriate time to carry out the ‘migration.’
What is the function of the Reference Group?
Details about the reference group can be found on the Universal Standard Reference Group page, more detail about the role of the Reference Group can be found in the Terms of Reference document.
