Accreditation against the Standards

Who can gain accreditation against the Standards?

In order for a practice or health service to seek accreditation:

• it must provide comprehensive, patient-centred, whole-person and continuous care; and
• its services must be predominantly* of a general practice nature.

* more than 50% of the practice’s general practitioners’ clinical time (ie collectively), and more than 50% of services for which Medicare benefits are claimed or could be claimed (from that practice) are in general practice.

The definition exists solely to identify services eligible to be assessed as a general practice against the RACGP Standards for general practices (the Standards) by an accreditation agency approved under the Australian Commission on Quality and Safety in Healthcare’s National General Practice Accreditation Scheme. This definition is for the assessment of the environment and systems of quality and safety. In expanding the definition of a general practice for the purposes of accreditation there will be some services that are eligible to be accredited against the Standards but that may not be appropriate as training practice locations or eligible for entry into a training program. 

The general practice, once acknowledged as meeting the definition, must still meet all mandatory indicators in the Standards to be accredited. 

For further information, please contact your accreditation agency or the RACGP on standards@racgp.org.au.
 

How can a general practice become accredited against the Standards?

General practices who wish to gain formal accreditation against the Standards are required to do so via an independent accreditation agency.  The only model of third party review supported by the RACGP for these Standards is peer review where one surveyor must be a general practitioner.

To commence the process of gaining accreditation against the Standards, a general practice should choose an accreditation agency that will be able to talk them through this process, explain what is required and support them throughout the process.  It normally takes a practice between 12 - 18 months to prepare for their accreditation surveyor visit.

Where a clinic chooses not to be accredited or does not meet the definition of a general practice, can they still use the Standards?

Yes. The RACGP encourages all services that provide primary health care to consider the Standards as a template for quality improvement and risk management.  Most standards and related criteria will be relevant and adhering to these will enable practices to build the fundamentals of quality and safety into their systems.