We use data and intelligence to give us insight into the performance of institutions and programmes. We use it as a key part of our quality assurance model so we can be:
- Proactive where data and intelligence identifies risks;
- Risk-based and have an evidence-based understanding of risks for providers; and
- Proportionate, and use risk profiling to undertake bespoke and right touch regulatory interventions
But we also use it to inform how we undertake assessments. A great example of this is with the work we have been carrying out with Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW).
HEIW have commissioned new healthcare educational provision in the country, due to commence in September 2022. We have worked with HEIW to understand their approach within the commissioning exercise, and how we can support each other to achieve proportionate assessments to take assurance against our education standards.
Scrutiny of the HEIW invitation to tender provided us assurance that the education providers would meet the specific standards, or parts of standards, without the need for us to see the education providers’ full submissions.
Many areas assessed by HEIW through the tender process have considerable overlap with our standards. We have decided to use prior assessment by HEIW to apply a ‘right touch’ approach to assessment, gaining assurance that education providers and programmes have already been assessed, or at least demonstrated some progress, in certain areas of our standards of education and training (SETs).
Each new programme proposal will go through the approval process but we will apply a bespoke approach to these assessments with the previous assurances taken by HEIW in mind. This reduces the education provider’s workload and moves us towards our aim of enabling more effective and proportionate risk-based decision- making.
