A hospital team treating patients with cancer has become the first in the country to be awarded special accreditation for their work.
The radiotherapy department at Hull University Teaching Hospitals (HUTH) has received national accreditation for its work using CT imaging to target cancer cells with radiation.
Based at the Queen’s Centre at Castle Hill Hospital, the team is the first radiotherapy service to be awarded BS70000:2017 (MPACE) accreditation for its CT localisation process, the beginning of radiotherapy planning which is a specialist treatment minimising damage to healthy tissue and organs in patients with cancer.
Radiotherapy Manager Clare Hutton, professional lead for this team, praised the team for their outstanding efforts to establish their service at the forefront of patient care despite the impact of the pandemic.
She said: “I would like to thank all the staff for their dedication to patients and for the positive and professional manner they’ve shown in gaining accreditation.
“I fully appreciate all the hard work and effort during a very difficult time operationally.”
The UK Accreditation Service (UKAS), appointed by the Government to ensure organisations deliver appropriate standards of service, visited the Queen’s Centre in October 2018 when Radiotherapy Physics participated in the pilot for BS700000 accreditation.
Although HUTH’s radiotherapy services have met the 1SO9001 standard for years, the scope of the MPACE accreditation was broadened to include CT localisation.
Radiotherapy had to meet exacting challenges in technical competence to prove the treatment was “fit for purpose” when a Therapeutic Radiographer, acting as a technical assessor, and a lay assessor, considering the service from a patient’s perspective, carried out the audit in July.
Staff were praised for being welcoming, open, honest and professional during the audit as they provided evidence and explained why processes were designed in specific ways.
After addressing eight further recommendations from the assessor by the October deadline, the department has now been awarded the successful accreditation.
Clare Hutton said: “We’re going to use our forward-thinking approach to continually improve our service and patient care across the entire radiotherapy pathway. We are confident we are able to meet the highest standards in quality set by national auditors.”
