Open letters
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With reference to the article in INform 13 on communication with the auditee, I would like to raise the issue that it is still the case that little significance is assigned to relaying information to the client within the sensitive sector of health and social services. I have carried out important, high-level audits in hospitals and continually find that an examination of the customer is conducted quickly and using completely anachronistic and impractical methods. I myself am in charge of an organization concerned with the care for and rehabilitation of psychiatric patients in Puglia, South Italy.
Having in the past used respectable and above all standardized examination methods (such as questionnaires), in other words not addressing the real need to collate the opinions and suggestions of the persons receiving treatment from the organization, I decided to develop a project in which a satisfaction survey was created directly by the end users of the service (the psychiatric patients). These same creators of the questionnaire (users) conducted the interviews during a training session.
What I have communicated here is only intended to be an account of an alternative way to survey the customer. If you are interested in the methodological procedures used and the final product (questionnaire and interviews) please contact me, and I will send you the information as described.
Maria Pia Cozzari
I was delighted to receive the e-newsletter from IRCA, and was very grateful to learn so much about auditing and international standards.
Smart Chen
I was surprised that there was only one brief mention of organizational processes in the Q&A section of INform and nothing on the importance of auditor understanding and application of the process approach in carrying out effective management system audits. Until certification body auditors understand the relationship between enablers and results and start following the connectivity from vision and mission through the organizational results and back again, these so called system audits will not provide the added value end users are seeking.
David Hoyle
