When it comes to compliance with the National Standards, the star ratings have grabbed all of the attention, and it’s certainly the most visually interesting feature of the new standardised system. What is less apparent to the casual observer is the fact that there is a robust audit process sitting behind those star ratings and making them valuable.
That process revolves around technical audits. These are snapshots of your site on a given day and are done by measuring your site against your cleaning specification. But what does this mean in practise?
Let’s assume you have a compliant cleaning specification already in place. In that case, you’ll know the FR rating of every room/area, and for each room/area you’ll have a list of elements (doors, tables, chairs, switches, sockets etc). Each of those elements will have a performance parameter.
The performance parameter is your guide to conducting a technical audit. This takes a little adjusting to if you’ve had lots of experience doing audits already, but for a beginner it’s perfect. So, you enter a room and look at the list of elements for that room. Let’s say the door is the first element on the list. You’ll find a performance parameter next to the element. For doors, this will say something along the lines of “All parts of the door should be visibly clean, so that all door surfaces, vents, frames and jambs have no blood or bodily substances, dust, dirt, debris, adhesive tape or spillages.”
All you have to do is observe the door. Does it meet that parameter or not? Mark down a yes or a no. It’s as simple as that. As you go around that room you’ll build up a score. Then these will combine to form an overall score for your site. That score will be converted into a star rating.
It all boils down to that moment of judgement, where you decide quite simply if the door meets its performance parameter or not. Now obviously there’s a lot of setting up to do in order to make the whole audit smooth and simple when it comes together, and that’s what our compliance service provides. For support with your audits, or to book one of our auditors, get in touch today by following this link.
