Trent Accreditation Scheme

The approach Trent took to Clinic and Hospital Accreditation was based on the axiom that no single healthcare system, whether European, American, Asian or otherwise in origin, has the right to claim a monopoly viewpoint over what represents acceptable quality and best clinical practice throughout the world, and no one country has the absolute right to tell another how their hospitals should be run.

To achieve all of this, Trent worked in close partnership with participating hospitals and clinics to generate an appropriate and mutually acceptable set of standards to survey against.

Trent utilised UK-sourced surveyors who were either working in the British National Health Service, or NHS, or had retired in recent times, and hence have valuable experience and insight "at the coal face", and in Hong Kong Trent also appoints locally domiciled surveyors (see later).

and healthcare management/administration, so as to ensure an appropriately broad portfolio of knowledge and skills are always present within the surveying teams and the wider organisation.

Discussion and analysis of the data thus generated, not only by the Trent team but also by the hospital or clinic under survey, represented a major component of Trent's approach to hospital and clinic accreditation, and reflected an underlying philosophy that the whole process was about improving services to patients and the ability of an organisation to work effectively towards that aim.

This approach led to unrivaled opportunity and potential for the sharing of ideas about best practice between hospitals working in the same locality, and the development of camaraderie.

The findings were subsequently digested, analysed and put into a more detailed printed report, with positive virtues being highlighted as well as problems.