The primary aims of the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards are to protect the public from harm and to improve the quality of health service provision. Implementation is mandated in all hospitals, day procedure services and public dental services across Australia. When used in assessment they provide a quality assurance mechanism that tests whether relevant systems are in place to ensure that expected standards of safety and quality are met.
Healthcare variation – why does it happen and what can we do about it?
Our online Better Care Everywhere: Healthcare variation in practice program series will answer these questions and more in the first program of its kind dedicated to reducing unwarranted variation in clinical care across Australia.
Leaders of a health service organisation set up and maintain systems and processes to support effective communication with patients, carers and families; between multidisciplinary teams and clinicians; and across health service organisations. The workforce uses these systems to effectively communicate to ensure safety.
Understanding the characteristics of organisations that deliver excellent person-centred care can help guide improvement across the healthcare system.
The Commission is seeking real-world case studies from health service organisations to share experiences of implementing the Comprehensive Care Standard.
Predicting, preventing and managing self-harm and suicide
Medication safety alerts are issued in response to reported incidents, or for medicines with known high risk. Alerts and guidance are also issued on medicines shortages. They can advise on:
- action to prevent future adverse medicine events, or to lessen the risk of such events, and
- strategies on conserving medicines during a medicines shortage and associated safety considerations.
The principles of person-centred care can help to support patient safety. The communication, culture and systems within healthcare organisations all play a role in fostering patient safety.
The National statement on health literacy is Australia’s national approach to addressing health literacy.
Health literacy is about how people understand information about health and health care, and how they apply that information to their lives, use it to make decisions and act on it.
Question Builder is a free online tool to help you think about the questions you might like to ask your doctor, and to prepare for questions they may ask you when you go to an appointment.
The Commission does not manage complaints about health care.
The information on this page will guide you through the complaints process, including links to where you can make a complaint in Australia.
Building effective and ongoing relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, organisations and groups that represent or service this population.
Healthcare services have a responsibility to the community for continuous improvement of the safety and quality of their services, and ensuring they are person centred, safe and effective.
The health care that people receive in the last years, months and weeks of their lives can help to minimise the distress and grief associated with death and dying for the individual, and for their family, friends and carers.
Effective infection prevention and control practices reduce the risk of transmission of infections between patients, healthcare workers and others in the healthcare environment.
This page includes information on Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) and reports on monitoring the burden of CDI in Australian hospitals.
The Hip Fracture Clinical Care Standard (2023) provides guidance to clinicians and health services on delivering appropriate care for people with a hip fracture.