ESTATE COMPLIANCE
‘The next generation of assurance tools’
In an article in the September 2023 issue of HEJ, Quiqsolutions Business Development director, Health and Care, Paul Kaye, explained how – working with IHEEM – the company was set to launch a suite of tools to aid EFM governance and compliance. Here he explains how the past year has seen Quiqsolutions and IHEEM’s Technical Platforms work together again to develop ‘the next generation of assurance tools’, and standardised audit and pre-audit templates across key estates technical areas such as Ventilation, Water, Decontamination, Electrical, and Medical Gases.
There remains a considerable focus on governance and assurance within NHS estates, with demands for Trust EFM teams to demonstrate compliance to their Boards, with an expanding agenda that also now sees environmental and sustainability issues to the fore, as well as the challenge, for some, of looming PFI handbacks, to contend with. In the light of this, the PAM model for 2024 been extended, with more areas covered in this year’s Trust submission than ever before. However, it can be argued that PAM only goes ‘skin deep’, and does not offer the deeper dive at a more technical level to provide assurance that estates and facilities are safe, effective, and of a high quality. With the continuing financial challenges facing the sector, the need to balance risk is greater than ever, with no blank cheques being handed out. Against this backdrop, the partnership formed
in 2023 between leading compliance software specialist, Quiqsolutions, and IHEEM – the independent professional engineering institute that promotes best practice guidance and development within the sector, was a significant step towards raising the awareness of quality and governance, as well as highlighting that the sector was lagging behind in its adoption of digital solutions in QA and compliance. Completing PAM submissions every year has become mandatory for all NHS Trusts, but there is still a long way to go in embedding governance and assurance processes that delve more deeply to give a truly accurate picture.
Dashboards give real-time visibility and reporting.
Underwriting compliance standards Over the past 12 months Quiqsolutions and IHEEM’s Technical Platforms have been working to develop the next generation of assurance tools and to develop standardised audit and pre-audit templates across the key estates technical areas such as Ventilation, Water, Decontamination, Electrical, and Medical Gases. With content underwritten by IHEEM – including an ongoing review and approval process, there is peace of mind for Trusts that the content is current, in line with the latest best
practice, and fit for purpose. In addition, the Quiqcare self-assessment tool is now available, enabling Trusts to evidence compliance and run reports. Action plans can be developed to capture any issues requiring improvement, and alerts and reminders ensure nothing gets missed.
IHEEM now provides free access to the digital audits for all IHEEM-accredited AEs, including licences to use the software, and dashboards showing the audit history across all locations where they have used the tool. AEs can also access evidence and action plans for Trusts using the PAM / HTM self-assessment tool in the technical areas they are working in. Free training and access to ongoing helpdesk support is also included, with easy access to IHEEM for input on content updates. The challenge now is to encourage a new way of thinking, and to persuade AEs who are used to operating in a certain way to now adopt technology and the benefits that this will bring.
A Trust’s view Trusts are starting to embrace the Quiqcare system, and a number of them are investing. Liam Casey, Associate Director of Estates, Facilities and Capital Development at Sheffield Health & Social Care (SHSC), said: “Along with other Trusts, we had found completing our annual PAM returns using the spreadsheet provided by NHS England to be a time-consuming process, with challenges in managing inputs across multiple departments, and maintaining version control. With the advent of products such as Quiqsolutions’ Quiqcare platform, this process has been transformed for us, enabling the team to work on a year-round picture of compliance rather than focusing on an annual event. The ability to assign tasks and create action plans means that issues uncovered during self- assessment are made more visible, and greatly increases the likelihood of them being addressed in a timely and efficient manner.
“SHSC is really seeing the benefits of this approach,” he continued, “and we are now going deeper by adding the new Quiqsolutions / IHEEM tool to run alongside PAM. This tool asks detailed self-assessment questions regarding HTM compliance, and we are now able to ensure that we identify gaps, implement action plans to address them, continuously monitor, and provide the assurance we need across all the hard FM technical areas that it covers, in a robust and transparent way. We look forward to working with our AEs to join more of the dots, and align our priorities with the findings from their audits, which will all be on the same platform. “A number of other NHS Trusts are going down the
100 Health Estate Journal October 2024
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