Trent Accreditation Scheme

The Trent Accreditation Scheme (TAS), (now replaced de facto by a number of independent accreditation schemes, such as the QHA Trent Accreditation), was a British accreditation scheme formed with a mission to maintain and continually evaluate standards of quality, especially in health care delivery, through the surveying and accreditation of health care organisations, especially hospitals and clinics, both in the UK and elsewhere in the world.

The Trent UK Accreditation Scheme, or TAS UK, ceased to operate in May 2010, when a majority of Board members decided to end the scheme.

Subsequently, a number of independent accreditation schemes were set up, including the British-based scheme QHA Trent Accreditation.

Trent's basic mission resembled that of the USA's Joint Commission International, or JCI, and other major international healthcare accreditation groups, although there were some significant differences in the way the different groups work.

Apart from hospitals in the United Kingdom, Trent also surveyed a large number of private sector hospitals in Hong Kong. and at the time of its demise had been developing links with hospitals in Cyprus.

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. What is vital is that the quality of care which patients receive should be of the highest possible standard, and also that the hospitals and clinics providing that care should be independently capable when it comes to working out how best to maintain those standards and how best to respond to any new challenges which will inevitably come along. If the overall standards of a hospital or clinic can be shown to be of acceptable quality, then it is desirable, and even ideal, that local differences related to culture and to legislation should be specifically discussed and incorporated into the assessment standards in an appropriate fashion. That said, Trent was very interested in the medical ethical standards of the hospitals it worked with.

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