RACGP Standards for general practices
How do the Standards work?
The Standards are structured as a hierarchy. The chart below shows the relationship between standards, criteria, indicators, and explanations.
Each standard sets a general expectation for an area of practice activity, with a primary focus on quality and safety.
Each standard is divided into a number of criteria which outline specific and practical expectations for meeting the standard.
In general, each criterion has a number of related indicators which describe what practices need to do to meet the criterion. There are a few criteria which have no related indicators because the historical compliance rate is high and the associated risk to patients is deemed low.
Flagged indicators (those marked ►) are considered mandatory. Unflagged indicators are considered discretionary.
In line with contemporary thinking, indicators in the 4th edition Standards do not prescribe the methods by which practices will be assessed against each criterion but rather leave it to practices themselves to decide how they will demonstrate achievement of the RACGP Standards.
Each criterion has an explanation to guide and support practices working to achieve the criterion. Explanations provide a summary of key points, definition of terms, factual information, links to useful resources, examples and suggestions on how practices can meet the particular requirements of a criterion.
Cross referencing of criteria
The Standards are written as an integrated whole. This means there are numerous cross references between various criteria within the Standards to support an overall area of activity.
Some methods for demonstrating achievement
Practices can use a range of methods to demonstrate how they meet particular standards, criteria and indicators including:
- patient health records
- practice documentation such as the practice policy and procedure manual, practice information sheet, staff position descriptions, temperature data logs for vaccine refrigerators, quality improvement and continuing professional development [QI&CPD] data, Health Insurance Commission data, appointment schedules
- patient feedback questionnaires and patient feedback data
- discussions between relevant members of the practice team and accreditation surveyors.
There may be times when practices consider a particular indicator to be not applicable. In this situation, practices are encouraged to consider whether peers would agree with such an assessment.