JAG accreditation is basically a quality system and confirms your adherence to published standards and best practices.
Till now there has been little regulation for reprocessing devices outside HSDU, the JAG standard is aimed to raise standards and introduce national consistency for endoscope reprocessing.
After all the risks posed by less-than-clean surgical instruments and endoscopes are the same.
I am right in thinking it will not be possible to continue to do certain procedures e.g. bowel cancer screening without JAG accreditation.
I also think it is very likely CQC and other bodies will soon be taking a serious look at trust’s/organisation’s decontamination methods, particularly reprocessing outside HSDU to assess compliance to published standards.
We received accreditation in 2008 and I believed vast majority of endoscopy units in the UK are now accredited.
With regards to pass-through re processors, this is to comply with new and emerging HTM standards for having validated systems and segregating dirty and clean areas.
Its a very expensive exercise to convert existing endoscopy suites to meet these standards and some organisations may struggle to comply.
