Accreditation provides independent and impartial recognition that a service demonstrates high levels of quality. This means that patients can feel confident in their pulmonary rehabilitation service and be assured of receiving high quality consistent care.

It provides a sense of pride for the pulmonary rehabilitation service in being able to show that it offers a high quality and safe service. Accredited services can also be more attractive to potential employees and trainees.

There are many benefits of accreditation for services, commissioners and patients, including:

• Independently measuring services against national standards and reducing variation.
• Demonstrating a service’s dedication to improvement, patient safety and reducing risk.
• Improving value for money by increasing efficiency and improving patient experience.
• Raising the profile of a service across the organisation and leveraging support for investment.
• Helping teams highlight and share good practice as well as expert, targeted advice on where to focus your improvement efforts.

Accreditation is supported by the CQC and some RCP accreditation schemes have already been recognised by CQC as an information source. We are working to achieve the same recognition for PRSAS.