UKAF (United Kingdom Accreditation Forum) was founded in June 1998 by a group of healthcare accreditation organisations, including national, regional, generic and specialty programmes. It changed its name to HaSCAF (Health and Social Care Accreditation Forum) in 2012.  The HaCEQAF (Health and Care External Quality Assessment Forum) website is now managed by CHKS Ltd. 

The aim of the Forum is to provide an effective network of organisations which operate or have a practical interest in developing standards-based quality assessment and accreditation programmes in health and social care, including those (e.g. inspection programmes) which review services or clinical pathways against defined standards, but do not certify or accredit compliance with the standards.

The Forum meets either virtually or face-to-face three times a year. Meetings involve discussion of current healthcare quality issues, presentations from relevant organisations such as regulators, quality experts and NHS organisations. There is in-depth discussion on all aspects of quality assessment and accreditation programmes such as standards development, assessment methodologies, the training of assessors and peer reviewers, and the utilisation of scoring systems in inspection systems and in awarding certification and accreditation. 

The mapping of accreditation and similar quality assessment programmes in Europe began during the European Union (EU) research project on External Peer Review Techniques (ExPeRT) in 1997. A profile of voluntary UK programmes was published as a promotional brochure and circulated to the then Department of Health (DH), the Medical Royal Colleges and chief executives in the NHS in 1999, with little evident effect on uptake. Most of the UK programmes who form the membership of this Forum have participated for some time, and others have joined the Forum more lately in the last 5 years.