Standards

Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust must assure itself that all regulatory requirements and standards relating to the mortuary are met and that the practice of leaving deceased people out …

Where local authorities provide an unlicensed body store, they should do so in line with this Report's recommendations to local authority providers of licensed mortuaries.

The UK government should establish an independent statutory regulatory regime for funeral directors in England as a matter of urgency in order to safeguard the security and dignity of the …

These regulations and standards should be considered within the overall care and journey of the deceased rather than applying in isolation to funeral directors.

The standards should include details of mandatory information to be given to customers by funeral directors to provide transparency about the care of the deceased, including information on measures to …

Direct cremation businesses should also be considered in this context, and mandatory standards to protect the security and dignity of the deceased should be applied to these businesses and to …

The NHS should ensure that the security standards required for body stores are the same as those required for facilities licensed by the Human Tissue Authority.

BS 9414 should be approached with caution and we recommend that the government make it clear that it should not be used as a substitute for an assessment by a …

That the British Standards Institution amend BS 750 to include a description of the circumstances under which the flow coefficient to which it refers in paragraph 10.2 is to be …

In addition, the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly ought, in the Inquiry's view, to give due consideration to an independent mechanism to assess compliance with codes of conduct in public …

We recommend that if the government accepts any of the recommendations set out above, it should make arrangements to ensure that these are to be applicable across the whole of …

In providing post-mortem reports pathologists should be under a duty to: (i) Satisfy themselves, insofar as is practicable, as to the accuracy and completeness of the information briefed them. (ii) …

General Medical Council ('GMC') 'Good Medical Practice' Code requirements should be incorporated into contracts of employment for doctors.

The Department should review healthcare standards in light of the findings and recommendations of this report and make such changes as are necessary.

The Department should provide clear standards to govern the management of healthcare litigation by Trusts and the work of Trust employees and legal advisors in this connection should be audited.

Clear national standards should be drawn up setting out the professional duties and expectations of clinical leads at all levels, including, but not limited to, clinical directors, clinical leads, heads …

The NHS Constitution should incorporate an expectation that staff will follow guidance and comply with standards relevant to their work, such as those produced by the National Institute for Health …

Healthcare professionals should be prepared to contribute to the development of, and comply with, standard procedures in the areas in which they work. Their managers need to ensure that their …

The recommendations and standards suggested in the Patients Association's peer review into complaints at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust should be reviewed and implemented in the NHS.

The commissioner is entitled to and should, wherever it is possible to do so, apply a fundamental safety and quality standard in respect of each item of service it is …

In addition to their duties with regard to the fundamental standards, commissioners should be enabled to promote improvement by requiring compliance with enhanced standards or development towards higher standards. They …

Standards should be divided into: Fundamental standards of minimum safety and quality – in respect of which non-compliance should not be tolerated. Failures leading to death or serious harm should …

The first priority for any organisation charged with responsibility for performance management of a healthcare provider should be ensuring that fundamental patient safety and quality standards are being met. Such …

In addition to the fundamental standards of service, the regulations should include generic requirements for a governance system designed to ensure compliance with fundamental standards, and the provision and publication …

All the required elements of governance should be brought together into one comprehensive standard. This should require not only evidence of a working system but also a demonstration that it …

The system for approving and accrediting training placement providers and programmes should be configured to apply the principles set out above.

The Government, through regulation, but after so far as possible achieving consensus between the public and professional representatives, should provide for the fundamental standards which should define outcomes for patients …

The General Medical Council should in the course of its review of its standards and regulatory process ensure that the system of medical training and education maintains as its first …

The General Medical Council should immediately review its approved practice settings criteria with a view to recognition of the priority to be given to protecting patients and the public.

The NHS Commissioning Board together with Clinical Commissioning Groups should devise enhanced quality standards designed to drive improvement in the health service. Failure to comply with such standards should be …

It is essential that professional bodies in which doctors and nurses have confidence are fully involved in the formulation of standards and in the means of measuring compliance.

Nursing training should be reviewed so that sufficient practical elements are incorporated to ensure that a consistent standard is achieved by all trainees throughout the country. This requires national standards.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council and other professional and academic bodies should work towards a common qualification assessment/examination.

There should be national training standards for qualification as a registered nurse to ensure that newly qualified nurses are competent to deliver a consistent standard of the fundamental aspects of …

The Care Quality Commission should be responsible for policing the fundamental standards, through the development of its core outcomes, by specifying the indicators by which it intends to monitor compliance …

There should be a national code of conduct for healthcare support workers.

There should be a common set of national standards for the education and training of healthcare support workers.

The code of conduct, education and training standards and requirements for registration for healthcare support workers should be prepared and maintained by the Nursing and Midwifery Council after due consultation …

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence should be commissioned to formulate standard procedures and practice designed to provide the practical means of compliance, and indicators by which compliance …

Consideration should be given to ensuring that there is regulatory oversight of the competence and compliance with appropriate standards by the boards of health service bodies which are not foundation …

The measures formulated by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence should include measures not only of clinical outcomes, but of the suitability and competence of staff, and the …

Compliance with regulatory fundamental standards must be capable so far as possible of being assessed by measures which are understood and accepted by the public and healthcare professionals.

It should be considered the duty of all specialty professional bodies, ideally together with the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, to develop measures of outcome in relation to …

The Information Centre should continue to develop and maintain learning, standards and consensus with regard to information methodologies, with particular reference to comparative performance statistics.

The standards applied to statistical information about serious untoward incidents should be the same as for any other healthcare information and in particular the principles around transparency and accessibility. It …

National guidance should set out standard methodologies for approaching the certification of the cause of death to ensure, so far as possible, that similar approaches are universal.

The Department of Health should together with healthcare systems regulators take the lead in developing through obtaining consensus between the public and healthcare professionals, a coherent, and easily accessible structure …

The NHS Trust Development Authority should develop a rigorous process for the assessment as well as the support of potential applicants for foundation trust status. The assessment must include as …

No NHS trust should be given support to make an application to Monitor unless, in addition to other criteria, the performance manager (the Strategic Health Authority cluster, the Department of …

The NHS Constitution should include reference to all the relevant professional and managerial codes by which NHS staff are bound, including the Code of Conduct for NHS Managers.

The Department of Health and NHS Commissioning Board should consider what steps are necessary to require all NHS providers, whether or not they remain members of the NHS Litigation Authority …

The Board should require all those who subscribe to have an adequate and speedy complaint handling mechanism; it should encourage those who wish to complain to do so through that …

The Board should have the power to hear and decide on complaints about breach of the standards code by those who subscribe. The Board should have the power (but not …

The requirements for recognition should be those set out the recommendations set out above numbered 1 to 24 inclusive and more fully described in Part K, Chapter 7, Section 4 …

In addition to Recommendation 10 above, a new regulatory body should consider requiring: (a) that newspapers publish compliance reports in their own pages to ensure that their readers have easy …

A new regulatory body should consider establishing a kite mark for use by members to establish a recognised brand of trusted journalism.

A regulatory body should consider engaging in an early thorough review of the Code (on which the public should be engaged and consulted) with the aim of developing a clearer …

A regulatory body should be prepared to allow a complaint to be brought prior to commencing legal proceedings if so advised. Challenges to that approach (and applications to stay) can …

A new regulatory body should continue to provide advice to the public in relation to issues concerning the press and the Code along with a service to warn the press, …

A new regulatory body should make it clear that newspapers will be held strictly accountable, under their standards code, for any material that they publish, including photographs (however sourced).

A new regulatory body should consider being explicit that where a public interest justification is to be relied upon, a record should be available of the factors weighing against and …

A new regulatory body should consider whether it might provide an advisory service to editors in relation to consideration of the public interest in taking particular actions.

A new regulatory body should consider encouraging the press to be as transparent as possible in relation to the sources used for stories, including providing any information that would help …

A regulatory body should establish a whistleblowing hotline for those who feel that they are being asked to do things which are contrary to the code.

The industry generally and a regulatory body in particular should consider requiring its members to include in the employment or service contracts with journalists a clause to the effect that …

Specific provision should be made to the effect that, in considering the exercise of any of its powers in relation to the media or other publishers, the Information Commissioner's Office …

The standards code must ultimately be the responsibility of, and adopted by, the Board, advised by a Code Committee which may comprise both independent members of the Board and serving …

The code must take into account the importance of freedom of speech, the interests of the public (including the public interest in detecting or exposing crime or serous impropriety, protecting …