The Quality Council of India (QCI) has signed service agreement with the department of health and family welfare, Gujarat. The main objective of the agreement is to review the existing standards in hospitals across the state, develop standard operational procedure and training to the staff.

The agreement was signed by Rita Teaotia, principal secretary, department of health and family welfare, government of Gujarat, and Girdhar J Gyani, secretary general, QCI.

Speaking to Pharmabiz, Dr Bhupendra Kumar Rana, deputy director of National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Health Care (NABH), said, "We have signed service agreement with Government of Gujarat. We have also prepared separate quality standards for the blood banks. The accreditation standard for the blood banks is expected to be well defined by the end of this month".

The comprehensive technical support will be provided by the QCI to eight regional civil hospitals at Gandhinagar, Sola, Junagadh, Kutch, Mehsana, Godhara, Valsad and Narmada, Rajkot and six laboratories.

The QCI will also work for the total quality management system and it will prepare accreditation as per the NABH and National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) standards. Gujarat is the first state to take lead in preparing the public hospitals to work on accreditation standards.

The QCI will also have the discussions and sensitisation programmes for the policy makers, senior officers and other stakeholders. The Training Need Assessment (TNA) will be done by QCI for preparing the training modules for imparting training to the potential trainers. QCI will also assist the facilities in carrying out the self-assessment as per NABH/ NABL standards.