The EHPA Accreditation Process

Part One:  Approval of the Institution

Before a course can be fully accredited by the EHPA, the Institution offering the course will have undergone a number of stages of scrutiny.  In the first instance, the Chair of the Board and the Accreditation Facilitator will visit the institution and meet senior staff, following which the institution is invited to submit a Statement of Intent (SOI) to seek accreditation.  Information included in the SOI must demonstrate that the institution can meet the Board’s criteria for approval. These include the need to be legally constituted, financially secure, appropriately organised and managed, educationally sound, and with sufficient resources to be able to plan, deliver and assess an educational programme which will conform to the EHPA Core Curriculum.

A documentary review is carried out by selected Board members, who match the information in the document to the Board’s criteria, and who may elect to visit the Institution. The reviewers then provide a written report for the Board following which the Board will either approve the institution to proceed with accreditation or turn down the application.

Part Two:  Submission of full documentation and pre accreditation visit meeting

Once an Institution has been approved, the next requirement is for a Full Submission Document (FSD) to be produced, containing information which demonstrates that Board criteria for accreditation have or can be met. The FSD is scrutinised by the expert practitioners and educationalists appointed to make up the Accreditation Panel and a pre accreditation visit meeting is held with a senior staff member from the Institution to seek any necessary clarification.

At this point, the Panel may decide that the FSD provides a sufficient basis for the accreditation visit to the Institution, or that the FSD does not provide an adequate basis for the accreditation process to continue. In the latter instance, it may be decided to delay the visit, or refer the issues identified to the Board if it considered appropriate to halt the accreditation process.

 Part Three:   The Accreditation Visit

The Accreditation Panel spend one or two days in the Institution talking to staff and students, visiting clinics and talking to clinical staff, assessing the suitability of facilities and resources, examining support services, scrutinising documents and making judgements about the appropriateness of the learning environment. By considering both the written submission, and exploring during the visit how the Curriculum is interpreted and presented in practice, the Panel’s written report will identify those accreditation criteria that have or have not been met, confirm to what extent the EHPA standards have been met, and recommend to the Board whether or not the course should be accredited. The Board will then determine if the course is to be accredited, for how long, and stipulate any conditions that must be met. This provisional accreditation will remain in place until any conditions stipulated by the Board have been met in full.

Part Four: Full Accreditation

Institutions that have successfully completed parts one, two and three above, and in addition have met any conditions stipulated by the Board, will have their course fully accredited by the Board for a period of up to five years.