F1 – Defining and planning for the practice

The sixth edition strengthens the focus on practice planning, governance and risk management, recognising that safe, highquality care relies on wellfunctioning systems as well as clinical expertise. New criteria in F1 support practices to operate with clear direction, defined accountability and effective oversight of quality, safety and performance.

New criteria at F1 in the Foundations standard detail a need for:

• mission, vision and values

• strategic planning

• operational planning

• process to review and resolve ethical issues

• identifying and managing governance risks.

The Standards hub article Defining and planning for the practice provides further information.

Refer to F1 criteria and guidance

F2 – Response planning

Emergency response and business continuity planning were already required under the fifth edition. The sixth edition consolidates these concepts into a single criterion and expands expectations to include preparedness, recovery, continuity of care and testing of response plans.

Refer to F2 criteria and guidance

F3 – Environmental sustainability

Environmental sustainability and climate resilience are new areas in the sixth edition. These criteria recognise the impact that environmental factors and climate-related events can have on patient health, continuity of care and practice operations. They introduce expectations relating to climate resilience, environmental sustainability planning and accountability.

The Standards hub article Environmental sustainability and climate resilience in general practice provides further information.

Refer to F3 criteria and guidance

F4 – Induction, training and supporting performance

The sixth edition expands expectations relating to role-specific training, ongoing competency, person-centred care, Medicare billing education and responding to abuse and violence, including family, domestic and sexual violence.

The Standards hub article Induction and training provides further information.

Refer to F4 criteria and guidance

F7 – Team culture, safety and wellbeing

The sixth edition broadens the focus considerably to include wellbeing, psychological safety, workload monitoring, violence and aggression, workforce retention, staff feedback and culture.

Refer to F7 criteria and guidance

F8 – Information management and digital security

The cyber security emphasis, digital governance role, cyber incident planning and broader ICT governance are all significantly strengthened compared to the fifth edition.

Refer to F8 criteria and guidance

F9 – Privacy and confidentiality

F9.A now includes additional requirements relating to privacy responsibilities, patient communication and data breach awareness.

Refer to F9 criteria and guidance

F10 – Digital health technologies

Practices need documented process for assessing, implementing and managing digital health technologies and must ensure patients are appropriately informed about their use.

The criterion also requires practices to ensure team members have access to appropriate technical support and expertise.

Refer to F10 criteria and guidance

F11 – Artificial intelligence

The sixth edition introduces criteria that focus on the safe, transparent and accountable use of AI, ensuring practices have appropriate governance, oversight and risk management processes in place.

The Standards do not require practices to adopt or use AI tools. The AI criteria are only applicable and mandatory for practices who use AI tools.

The Standards hub article Artificial intelligence and the Standards provides further information.

Refer to F11 criteria and guidance

CG1 – Clinical information systems

Paper health records are no longer acceptable. Practices must use a digital clinical information system to manage patient health information. Criterion CG1.A acknowledges that hybrid systems may still be needed, for instance if the practice has patients at residential aged care facilities. However, all systems need to be digital.

Refer to CG1 criteria and guidance

CG3 – Facilitating complete patient health records

Facilitating complete patient health records broadly aligns with the fifth edition, while introducing several new requirements. The sixth edition asks for:

• demographic and identification details to be recorded in codable fields

• all active patient health records to include known allergies or a record of no known allergies.

Refer to CG3 criteria and guidance

CG4 – Provision of clinical and medicines guidelines

Antimicrobial stewardship and environmentally sustainable clinical practice are both new focus areas reflecting contemporary healthcare priorities.

Refer to CG4 criteria and guidance

CG9 – Infection prevention control, including reprocessing

The sixth edition requires practices that reprocess reusable medical devices to apply a risk-based approach in accordance with RACGP's Infection prevention and control guidelines or another model that meets the current Australian standard.

The RACGP Reprocessing guidelines FAQ provides further information.

Refer to CG9 criteria and guidance

CG10 – Practice environment

Multiple facilities-related indicators from the fifth edition have been consolidated into a single outcomes-focused requirement for practice environment. The sixth edition places less emphasis on infrastructure requirements and greater emphasis on whether the environment supports safe, high-quality care.

Refer to CG10 criteria and guidance

CG13 – Research

The sixth edition introduces clearer expectations around data governance, secondary use of data, data-sharing agreements and patient transparency.

This reflects the increasing use of deidentified general practice data for research, planning and quality improvement purposes.

Refer to CG13 criteria and guidance

PP4 – Informed consent

The sixth edition expands on informed consent requirements to include processes to obtain and document informed consent for clinical procedures and treatments (in addition to the existing requirement for when a third-party is present).

Refer to PP4 criteria and guidance

PP6 – Health promotion and preventative care

Health promotion and preventive care contains an environmental sustainability criterion, which asks practices to share information with patients about environmental issues relevant to the healthcare they receive.

Refer to PP6 criteria and guidance

PP8 – Consumer engagement

Instead of collecting 'patient feedback', as required in the fifth edition, practices now have a more flexible and outcomes‑focused approach. Practices are asked to actively engage with consumers – both formally and informally – to understand their experience and use that insight to improve care.
Formal methods might include things like structured surveys or consumer groups and informal engagement can be everyday conversations, opportunistic feedback, or digital insights.

The guidance materials provide non‑exhaustive examples of both formal and informal engagement methods, allowing practices to choose approaches that best suit their context.

The Standards hub article Consumer statements, engaging consumers provides further information.

Refer to PP8 criteria and guidance

CQI1 – Continuous quality improvement

The CQI standard encourages general practices to continuously evaluate, monitor and improve the quality of their services to enhance patient care and experiences. The sixth edition CQI standard now expects practices to:

• run ongoing QI with defined performance indicators, and to report QI and performance data to practice leadership

• undertake at least one quality improvement activity every 12 months, one of which includes the use of coded clinical data

• capture team feedback and document improvements arising from feedback, complaints and audits.

The Standards hub article Continuous quality improvement provides further information.

Refer to CQI1 criteria and guidance