MHRA appoints Dekra to certify medical devices in UK

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has appointed Dekra to certify medical devices in the UK.

Dekra Certification UK has joined the three current UK approved bodies, increasing the UK’s capacity to process conformity assessments for medical devices to ensure safe and effective devices reach the UK public.

An approved body is an organisation that has been designated by the MHRA to assess whether manufacturers and their medical devices meet the requirements set out in the UK Medical Devices Regulations 2002.

Following an appropriate assessment, the new approved body will issue relevant certification allowing manufacturers to place a UKCA marking on their products before putting them on the market.

Dr Laura Squire, chief healthcare quality and access officer at the MHRA, said: “This is a major milestone in our mission to ensure patients across the UK have access to the high-quality medical devices they need to protect their health.

“Approved bodies play a critical role in the supply of medical devices and expanding capacity is vital to the successful development of the UK’s medical device regulatory regime. This has been a significant piece of work and our teams have worked extremely hard to get to this stage.”

The MHRA’s detailed assessment process is designed to ensure that any organisations that wish to certify medical devices are stable, are able to undertake impartial and objective assessments, have an appropriate quality management system in place to support them, have the resources to undertake the assessments, and the processes and ongoing certification in place to meet the relevant regulatory requirements.

There are a further six organisations who are currently in the assessment process and there is active engagement with several further organisations who are preparing to submit their initial submission.