QUALITY IMPROVEMENT


Compliance company checked for compliance


HEJ reports on the journey taken recently by provider of specialist AE services, DRLC, to gain accreditation to the ISO 9001 process improvement, and the ISO 14001 environmental, standards, working with Richard Dolman, MD at Glade Consulting, whose specialist services include quality management system implementation and internal auditing.


DRLC is a family firm which supplies Authorising Engineering services to healthcare facilities. The company was formed in 2016 by managing, David Livingstone, and is run by he and his partner, Dr Louise Webb. Since founding the company in 2016 in Sheffield, the pair have increased DRLC’s range of services from initial ventilation work to encompass fire safety and pressure systems, water safety, confined spaces, and medical gases. DRLC also carries out Design Review services on new and refurbished healthcare projects. Recently it has been engaged in steam and boiler house surveys, and the development of engineering drawings of these legacy facilities. Another growth area has been the provision of clerk of works services to healthcare building projects.


Significant growth The company has grown from two Directors in 2017 to a team of over 15 full- and part-time staff and associates in 2024. Any company experiencing this type of rapid growth will experience teething problems, and DRLC was no exception. The company was keen to streamline its procedures and align what it was doing day to day with best practice. It was also keen to meet the NHS Shared Business Services’ stringent requirements for acceptance onto the organisation’s procurement framework. David Livingstone said: “I saw that


we needed to start working towards an International Standard. I think that we can develop our company to enable us to be successfully assessed for ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. The ISO 9001 standard is a process improvement which will allow us to continually monitor, manage, and improve the quality of our services. We will use it as an effective business improvement tool to provide the guidance we need to enable us to consistently meet our clients’ expectations and regulatory requirements.” He continued: “I am particularly keen on


September 2024 Health Estate Journal 43


the ISO 14001 certificate. ISO 14001 is an internationally recognised framework for setting up an environmental management system (EMS). This shows that DRLC is committed to reducing the environmental impact of our company’s operations. We spend a lot of our time and effort advising and encouraging our NHS clients to reduce energy consumption and run their estates along sound environmental principles. We need to be looking at equivalent ways of reducing our carbon footprint.”


The ISO 9001 standard ISO 9001 contains a set of Quality Principles, which include: n Customer focus – how is the organisation dealing with its clients?


Below: DRLC MD, David Livingstone, discussed the healthcare compliance of this space-saving air- handling unit with the manufacturers and the NHS client at Healthcare Estates 2023.


Right: DRLC recently undertook a factory visit to Medexs to assess the HTM 03-01 compliance of an innovative air-handling unit.


n Leadership – what are the Board and Directors and managers focusing on, and what tools and techniques are they using?


n Engagement of people – what is the company culture, and is it consistent across the enterprise?


n Process approach – are processes being used? Are they consistent? Are they continually checked and updated to reflect changes in the environment?


n Continuous improvement – using starting point and improvement registers.


n Evidence-based decision making – utilising tracking and registers developed either from scratch or improved as part of the process.


n Relationship management – which is critical to all the above.


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