The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) and the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) are proud to launch the Interpretive guide to the RACGP Standards for general practice (4th edition) for Aboriginal community controlled health services (‘Interpretive guide’).
A companion document to the RACGP’s current Standards for General Practices (4th edition) (‘the Standards’), the Interpretive guide aims to assist Aboriginal community controlled health services to meet the requirements for accreditation against the RACGP standards and to apply quality measures to their everyday practice.
The RACGP and NACCHO acknowledge the efforts made by the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHS), across Australia, to obtain RACGP accreditation, an important step towards achieving the best possible health outcomes for patients.
The Interpretive guide explains the Standards in a meaningful way for Aboriginal community controlled health services by taking into account their context, culture and service delivery models.
Associate Professor Brad Murphy, Chair of the RACGP National Faculty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health, acknowledges that Aboriginal community controlled health services are committed to achieving RACGP and other forms of accreditation, and this new resource aims to assist in identifying the relevance of the Standards to their own health services and communities.
"Thanks to the highly effective collaboration that took place between the RACGP and NACCHO, as well as its state and territory affiliates, we are proud to jointly launch a significant piece of work that will contribute to ongoing quality and safety improvements in the health services delivered to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities," A/Prof Murphy said.
By applying the Standards to individual practices, GPs, Aboriginal Health Workers and their practice teams ensure the provision of high quality, safe and contemporary primary healthcare is delivered to all Australians.
"Achieving accreditation demonstrates that a practice has been assessed as having reached defined standards of excellence in safety and quality in primary healthcare. This should be a matter of great pride to the practice itself, its patients and the community," said A/Prof Murphy.
Justin Mohamed the Chair of NACCHO on behalf of all the 150 members throughout Australia thanked the RACGP for the highly effective collaboration that has taken place between the two peak bodies to produce such an important resource
Both the Interpretive guide and Standards are available to all College stakeholders as either a downloadable PDF and also via an interactive and topic searchable web resource on the RACGP website.
This resource was made possible with funding from the Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA).