Organisations that hold a voluntary register for health and social care occupations can apply to us to become accredited. They are required to demonstrate to us that they meet our Standards for Accreditation.
Accreditation is renewable annually, provided organisations demonstrate that they continue to meet our standards.
We strongly encourage organisations to complete our self-assessment tool and to contact our Accreditation Team for an informal discussion before completing an application form to ensure that they understand our requirements fully.
We explain our assessment process for applications here.
You will notice that we require applying organisations to carry out a risk assessment and therefore we provide guidance and a risk assessment matrix template.
The Authority is required to carry out an impact assessment before it accredits a voluntary register.
We charge a non-refundable fee for assessing applications. We operate the accreditation scheme on a not-for-profit basis.
Organisations that have submitted applications, or expressed their intent to apply for accreditation are listed here.
Once we have accepted an application, we issue a Call for Information to ask stakeholders for their experience of the organisation.
If applying organisations are not satisfied with the outcome or with the way the AVR team processed their application, they may refer to our Appeals and Complaints Procedure.
See our Frequently Asked Questions for more information.
AVR and the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI) Applicants should note that the Authority is subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This means that the Authority may receive requests asking it to release applications and supporting documentation submitted by organisations applying for accreditation. The Authority will consider these requests on a case by case basis.
The Authority will, however, publish some information about organisations that have gained accreditation. The Authority will discuss the content of what it intends to publish with the successful organisation before publication.
Deadlines for application There is no deadline for submission of applications. Every application submitted for accreditation will be considered by the Accreditation Panel when the AVR team has performed all the stages of assessment (i.e. documentary review, site visit, interviews and observations). The assessment process starts when an application is submitted and the payment of fee confirmed so applying organisations will be in different stages of assessment based on when they submitted their application. Applications are reviewed in the order of submission. In addition, we need to assess case by case based on organisations’ own characteristics, complexity and ability to comply with our standards – all of these will impact on assessment timescales. We will not group applications in ‘waves’ and panel meetings will only be arranged when the AVR team has followed the whole process and is satisfied that the applying organisation is ready to be considered by the panel. Therefore, there are no fixed dates for panel meetings.