Ensure the staff and contractors providing services to your clients maintain the required competencies.
Competence can be described as the combination of training, skills, experience and knowledge that a person has and their ability to apply them to perform a task safely. Other factors, such as attitude and physical ability, can also affect someone's competence.
In healthcare particularly, there is a great deal of risk associated with staff competency and the obligations employers have to ensure that staff credentials are appropriate and up to date.
In section 7.2 Competence, the ISO 9001 quality management standard states:
The organization shall:
- determine the necessary competence of person(s) doing work under its control that affects the performance and effectiveness of the quality management system;
- ensure that these persons are competent on the basis of appropriate education, training, or experience;
- where applicable, take actions to acquire the necessary competence, and evaluate the effectiveness of the actions taken;
- retain appropriate documented information as evidence of competence.
- Schedule training certificate checks for staff and contractors.
- Upload and store related certificates and other records.