Required and aspirational criteria
All criteria in the Standards need to be met to achieve accreditation, apart from Aspirational Criterion.
Although the RACGP encourages practices to meet the aspirational criteria, they are not essential to achieve accreditation.
Terminology
Use of ‘patient’ and ‘consumer’
The terms patient, consumer, and consumer representative are used as follows:
- Patient – a person seeking or receiving healthcare
- Consumer – a person using a health service, or someone supporting that person
- Consumer representative – a consumer providing advice on behalf of others.
See Glossary for full definitions.
Definitions of roles and members in a practice
The Standards use the following terminology to refer to different roles and members of a practice:
- Practice team – everyone who works or provides care in the practice
- Clinical team – members of the practice team who hold health qualifications
- Employed members – individuals working under a formal employment agreement
- Independent Doctors in Practice – as defined in the Glossary.
Understanding these terms will help you to identify which criteria apply to whom. This is important because, for example, some criteria apply specifically to employed members of a practice, some to independent doctors in practice.
See Glossary for complete definitions of these and related terms.
Citation of federal, state or territory legislation
This document is not intended to comprehensively address legislative obligations, so references to legislation occur only where it is particularly relevant to specific aspects of general practice.
Practices are responsible for identifying and complying with all applicable federal, state, territory, and local laws. While meeting the Standards may also help a practice to meet some legislative requirements, doing so does not guarantee compliance with all legal obligations.