The European quality assurance scheme defines a common set of both quality and safety requirements for breast cancer services wishing to improve the quality of care offered to women.
The scheme is designed to be implemented on a voluntary basis and covers all the relevant care processes from screening until end-of-life care. Services compliant with the requirements can apply for certification.
Manuals have been developed for each main actor involved in the European quality assurance (QA) scheme implementation process.
The current versions of the manuals have been used to assess its feasibility in real settings and to pilot the certification process. A final version of the QA scheme will be prepared based on the outcomes obtained.
Scheme owner
Breast cancer services
This manual describes all requirements of the QA scheme. It provides details on how to meet these requirements and how to calculate the indicators that will be used to verify the quantitative requirements.
This manual also specifies how compliance with a given requirement has to be demonstrated by breast cancer services.
Certification bodies
This manual intends to facilitate the process for piloting of the certification body audit process of breast cancer services for the European QA scheme. It describes the requirements for certification bodies, including how to perform the auditing process and when to offer certification.
Implementation of the scheme
The revised versions of the European QA scheme manuals will be submitted to the EA to obtain the formal validation of the European QA scheme for distribution to the National Accreditation Bodies, thus ready-for-use.
Information on how the accredited certification process for the breast cancer initiative will be operated at EU level and how interested breast cancer services will be able to apply for certification will be made available by the EC. Meanwhile, the Scheme Owner Manual explains in detail the type of certification process the European QA scheme shall follow and already allows breast cancer services to start preparing for reaching compliance with the European requirements.