Accreditation: Protecting the Professional or the Consumer?

Ellie Scrivens Open University Press, £12.99, pp 184 ISBN 0335194915

Accreditation, in the sense that it is used in Ellie Scrivens's book, is a system of non-governmental self regulation in which an independent agency defines and monitors standards of quality in hospitals and other health service providers participating in the scheme. Its origins date from 1917 when it was first developed in the United States on the initiative of the medical profession. Since then models building on the American approach have been developed in Canada and Australia.

In Britain the development of accreditation has been …