National Safety and Quality Cosmetic Surgery Standards
Cosmetic surgery is a surgical intervention that is employed to achieve a change in physical appearance. It does not include surgeries required for medical purposes.
The National Safety and Quality Cosmetic Surgery Standards are part of a suite of reforms to the Australian cosmetic surgery sector that began in September 2022.
Overview
The National Safety and Quality Cosmetic Surgery Standards (the Cosmetic Surgery Standards) describe the processes and structures that are needed to deliver safe and high-quality care. Where implemented, people can be confident that their service provider is committed to delivering and continuously improving the safety and quality of their service.
Download the Cosmetic Surgery Standards
We developed the Cosmetic Surgery Standards at the request of Australian Health Ministers. They address specific safety and quality risks that are unique to the cosmetic surgery sector and ensure people undergoing cosmetic surgery receive safe, person-centred care.
The aim of the Cosmetic Surgery Standards is to protect the public from harm and improve the quality of cosmetic surgery in Australia.
The Standards
The Cosmetic Surgery Standards are comprised of 7 standards.
Clinical Governance
The set of relationships and responsibilities established by a Service to measure and ensure good clinical outcomes. It ensures the community, regulators and funders of Services can be confident that systems are in place to deliver safe and high-quality care, and continuously improve the services that are delivered.
Partnering with Consumers
The systems and strategies to create person-centred services in which patients and consumers are fully informed of the risks and costs of services and are provided information in a way they can understand to support shared decision making.
Preventing and Controlling Infections
The systems and strategies to prevent infection, effectively manage infections, prevent and contain antimicrobial resistance and promote appropriate prescribing and use of antimicrobials as part of antimicrobial stewardship.
Medication Safety
The systems and strategies to ensure clinicians are competent to safely prescribe, dispense, administer and monitor medicines, and patients understand their individual medicine needs and risks.
Comprehensive Care
The integrated screening, assessment and risk identification processes for developing an individualised care plan, to prevent and minimise the risks of harm in identified areas.
Communicating for Safety
The systems and strategies for effective communication between patients, carers, families and clinicians across the Service.
Recognising and Responding to Acute Deterioration
The systems and processes to respond effectively to patients when their physical, mental or cognitive condition deteriorates.
Each standard contains:
- a description of the standard
- consumer outcome statements
- statement of intent
- criteria that describe the key areas covered by the standard
- explanatory notes on the context of the standard
- item headings for groups of actions in each criterion
- actions describing what is required to meet the standard
Where do the Cosmetic Surgery Standards apply?
The Cosmetic Surgery Standards apply to services where cosmetic surgery is performed.
Cosmetic surgery employs invasive surgical procedures, to revise or change the appearance, colour, texture, structure or position of normal bodily features and often involves cutting beneath the skin, with the dominant purpose of achieving what the patient perceives to be a more desirable appearance. In this context, cosmetic surgery does not include non-surgical cosmetic procedures such as cosmetic injectables.
Cosmetic surgery services vary in size and complexity. A service ranges from a small day-only service, where the clinical, administrative and management operations of the organisation are the responsibility of a single person or a small number of people, to complex organisations comprised of many clinicians who may not be directly employed, a supporting workforce, management and an overarching governing body.
State and territory health regulators determine which safety and quality standards health services must meet.
How to implement the Cosmetic Surgery Standards
Implementation of the Cosmetic Surgery Standards is confirmed through a process called accreditation.
Assessors from an independent accrediting agency can be engaged to test if you are meeting the standards and determine if you meet requirements for the award of accreditation.
The monitoring tool allows services to track the progress of their implementation.
The assessment flowchart and fact sheet outline the assessment process and describe the requirements for accreditation. Further information is provided on our accreditation page.
Cosmetic Surgery Module
Health service organisations performing cosmetic surgery may be required to meet the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards (NSQHS Standards) and the Cosmetic Surgery Standards. The Cosmetic Surgery Module is a subset of actions from the Cosmetic Surgery Standards that enables organisations to meet the requirements of the NSQHS Standards and the Cosmetic Surgery Standards in a single assessment process.
It includes 20 actions specific to cosmetic surgery and is only intended for services who already implement the NSQHS Standards.
Download the Cosmetic Surgery Module
Download Cosmetic Surgery Module monitoring tool
To learn more about the Cosmetic Surgery Module, you can read the process for accreditation fact sheet and the Map of the Cosmetic Surgery Standards to the NSQHS Standards.
If you have queries about the Cosmetic Surgery Module or the assessment process, please contact our Safety and Quality Advice Centre.
Advisories
Advisories are formal guidance documents that explain how to interpret or assess our national safety and quality standards. They help health services, accrediting agencies and assessors understand critical information about standards and accreditation. Advisories are routinely reviewed, and revisions are summarised in the notes section of the relevant advisory.
You can view advisories for the Cosmetic Surgery Standards and Module on our advisories page.