The time taken for services to gain accreditation varies, and depends on the amount of work required to meet the standards and the resources available to enable this.
Some time frames which services should consider are:
- Service must be operational for at least 1 year before it can be eligible for accreditation
- The time between booking an assessment and the site assessment is a minimum of 10 weeks
- For services who have had their accreditation provisionally awarded by the assessment team, the time between the site assessment and having accreditation confirmed is typically 6-8 weeks.
- For services which have had their accreditation deferred by the assessment team, the service has up to 6 months to meet the standards and sign off their deferral assessment. If the service can be accredited, the time to having accreditation confirmed is typically 2 weeks from signing off the deferral assessment.