Welcome to Week Five of the Brand Partner Portal (BPP) overview! This week, we’re looking at the Quality Assurance Framework (QAF) Function, which will shortly go live in the BPP.
If you’ve missed an earlier edition from this series, you can view them all here.
What is the Quality Assurance Framework (QAF)?
The Quality Assurance Framework (QAF) is the set of standards and quality expectations that all of us (Age UK, local Age UKs and nations) agree to work within.
The QAF will shortly have a live function in the portal! This function will be used by all members of the Network to submit data relating to Quality, to support continuous quality improvement and to make it easier to meet the requirements of the Age UK Network Quality Standards.
Why is the Quality Function important?
The Quality Function on the Portal aims to ‘lighten’ and remove ‘crunch points’ from our external CQS (Charity Quality Standard) and IAQP (I&A Quality Programme) quality assessment processes by supporting partners with continuous self-assessment. By regularly submitting information into the Quality area of the Portal, Partners will be better placed to view more ‘early warning signs’ of potential quality issues through more regular quality monitoring – making it easier for you to spot where action might be needed and to request support.
You will also be able use this area of the Portal to report Serious Incidents to Age UK, as required by the Brand Partner Agreement. Using this functionality will enable you to access support sooner if you need it.
The Quality Function will also allow you to see the schedule of your quality assessments and produce and download reports that you can use with your Boards and other stakeholders to provide assurance. It will also provide a facility whereby partners can measure the satisfaction of your service users and see the results of those surveys in real time.
Brand partners already complete serious incident reports and annual reporting – these are vital to meeting the requirements of the Network Quality Assurance Framework. However, the Portal now makes this much easier, with all these report templates laid out in one place and quicker to complete.
The forms have been co-designed with partners to ensure they capture only the most essential information; are straightforward to complete; and will generate data that is helpful to your organisations in supporting continuous improvement. This data should help you to quickly spot where action needs to be taken and seek support if necessary.
This part of the portal also allows brand partners to produce reports as and when they are needed.
What can I use the Quality function on the BPP for right now?
The Quality Function will shortly have six sections, but initially only three of these sections will be operational:
- Submit Serious Incident Reports
- Complete the Quarterly Confirmation Report
- Complete the Annual Confirmation Report
Brand partners will shortly be able to use the Quality Function on the portal to submit these three reports.
What else will I be able to do with the Quality Function in the portal?
Later this year, the Quality Function will also support the following functionality:
- View all of your quality assessment reports – here you will be able to see all of your CQS and IAQP reports
- See your external assessment schedule – for both the IAQP and CQS standards so you can see the timescales you are working within for your assessments
- Access your template satisfaction survey
What does the Quality Function look like?
The Quality Function lives on the portal home page – the view of which may be familiar to you at this stage:
Once you click on the Quality tile, you will be taken here:
Access to the Quality Function of the Brand Partner Portal
Last week we wrote to CEOs at your organisation, asking you to let us know who at your organisation will require a login to the Quality Function of the BPP. You can find a copy of this communication and the QAF Portal Web Role form here.
If you have not already sent this information to the Quality Team, you will find a link to the QAF Portal Web Role Form here.
This form needs to be completed and sent to the Quality team at quality@ageuk.org.uk no later than 20th June.
How can I find out more about the Quality Function?
For more information, and to see what each of these sections looks like, we have a training webinar available to view here.
Alternatively, please feel free to send any questions to us on quality@ageuk.org.uk.
Until next time!
Next week is the last of our six-part series ‘Everything you ever wanted to know about the Brand Partner Portal’. We’ll be looking at what new functions are coming down the pipeline and what they will do.
We’ll also be providing a round-up of all six articles in the series in case you missed anything.
If you have any questions about a particular BPP function mentioned above and would like to explore how this can help your organisation, please feel free to get in touch at portalaccess@ageuk.org.uk.
Best wishes,
Alisa Yingling
Programme Manager
Brand Partner Portal
Age UK
