What do Turkey's SKS healthcare-quality standards mean?

Sağlıkta Kalite Standartları (SKS) are Turkey's government healthcare-quality standards. The Ministry of Health's quality department oversees the standards and related evaluation arrangements.

Who runs it and is it the government?

SKS belongs to the government's healthcare-quality system. It covers public, university and private hospitals, with additional standards for particular sectors. Ask the provider which set and version apply to its services.

SKS should be distinguished from TÜSKA's SAS accreditation and from international health-tourism authorisation. A clinic can refer to several of these arrangements, but each claim needs its own name and supporting document. “Ministry approved” is too broad to tell you which requirement the clinic means.

What does it assess and for how long?

SKS addresses national quality requirements and indicators, including patient and staff safety. Providers implement the standards internally and undergo ministry quality evaluation under the applicable framework.

The ministry publishes supporting guidance, including material on hospital risk management and indicator management. These documents explain aspects of the standards. They do not establish that a particular hospital has completed a particular evaluation. The ministry's hospital risk-management guidance is one example.

Ask for the evaluation date and the authority responsible for the provider's assessment. Do not turn that date into an assumed accreditation expiry. If a clinic claims a fixed-term award, ask it to identify the issuing programme and the document that specifies the term.

How do I find a clinic in its register?

Start with the ministry's quality website and identify the SKS set mentioned by the clinic. Request the provider's evaluation details, then ask the ministry to confirm what the result means for that organisation.

Give the authority the standards version, evaluation date and provider name. If the clinic instead supplies a TÜSKA certificate, use the SAS accreditation page to check that separate claim. A tourism-authorisation document belongs to a different verification route again.

What does it not tell me?

SKS implementation or evaluation does not, by itself, establish SAS accreditation or health-tourism authorisation. It also does not verify the treating doctor's licence. Ask about each credential in its own terms rather than accepting a group of logos as one approval.

Follow How to check any mark in five minutes for the common checks.

Checked on 23 October 2026.