PREP — the Patients & Relatives Experience Program — is a certification for hospitals and healthcare facilities that assesses one thing: the experience of patients and their relatives. It contains 11 domains, 60 standards and 226 performance criteria, all experience-only.
No — deliberately. PREP does not assess clinical care, clinical quality, clinical outcomes or patient-safety practices. It certifies how patients and relatives are treated, informed, supported and responded to. It complements clinical accreditation rather than competing with it.
Clinical accreditation addresses the technical quality and safety of care; experience appears in it only at the margins. PREP is the dedicated, in-depth framework for the dimension your patients actually talk about. Nothing in PREP duplicates a clinical audit.
Any hospital or healthcare facility, in any country — including clinics, day-care centres and small hospitals. The standards are written as outcomes, not prescriptions, so they can be met within any health system, culture or regulatory environment — facility-wide or for defined service areas. Fees are tiered by facility size and city tier so smaller facilities pay proportionately less.
Once your application is verified and you confirm readiness, the unannounced survey takes place within 90 days. Any observations carry a one-month improvement window. A genuinely ready facility can complete the journey within a few months.
No — that is the point. The head(s) of the organisation are informed beforehand, purely to manage logistics; staff are not told. PREP surveys assess the experience your facility delivers on an ordinary day, so the best preparation is simply to deliver it every day.
Each performance criterion is rated Exemplary, Progressing or Needs Attention. Scores roll up to an overall percentage. Certification requires at least 70% overall with every Core criterion met:
Surveyors interview patients and relatives, run experience surveys, observe patient-facing areas, review feedback and complaints handling, and talk to staff about experience practices. No clinical records are opened; no clinical decisions are reviewed.
Yes — it is in the name. PREP assesses the experience of relatives as partners in care: visiting, involvement in line with the patient’s wishes, information, amenities and support in difficult moments.
One year. Renewal is based on an annual unannounced renewal survey together with the facility’s real-time monitoring record — no re-application, just the annual fee and maintained standards.
Because experience cannot be staged. A scheduled visit shows a facility at its rehearsed best; an unannounced visit shows what patients and relatives actually encounter on an ordinary day. Knowing surveyors may arrive at any time keeps a facility genuinely, continuously ready — which is exactly the culture the standards exist to build.
Certified facilities are monitored continuously between surveys: PREP tracks the facility’s public and social-media reviews; and every facility’s certification status is published live in the directory on prep.healthcare. Sustained deterioration can trigger corrective action or suspension.
The PREP Standards Manual is available to download from prep.healthcare at a nominal charge, together with the self-assessment tool.
PREP was developed by Medigence Solutions Pvt Ltd under a Steering Committee and Technical Committee, with patients and relatives involved throughout, following a documented, evidence-informed development process benchmarked against internationally recognised frameworks.
Through documented evidence-referencing, formal stakeholder consultation and pilot testing in facility conditions, with every piece of feedback logged and dispositioned before sign-off.
A one-time application fee of ₹5,000 (clinics & day-care) to ₹50,000 (301+ beds), and an annual fee of ₹20,000 to ₹1,50,000 by facility size. Surveyor travel at actuals; taxes extra. International facilities can request the USD schedule from the Secretariat. The full table is on the Certification Process page.