National Safety and Quality Primary and Community Healthcare Standards
Primary and community healthcare services have a critical role in delivering health care to people across their lifespan.
Primary health care includes early intervention, treatment of acute conditions, management of chronic conditions, end-of-life care, health promotion and prevention.
It constitutes a large and essential part of the healthcare system.
The National Safety and Quality Primary and Community Healthcare Standards (the Primary and Community Healthcare Standards) describe the processes and structures that are needed to deliver safe and high-quality care.
Where implemented, patients can be confident that their healthcare service is committed to delivering and continuously improving the safety and quality of services.
Download the Primary and Community Healthcare Standards
We developed the Primary and Community Healthcare Standards in collaboration with consumers, healthcare providers and services, professional and peak bodies, Primary Health Networks and other representatives of the sector.
The aim of the Primary and Community Healthcare Standards is to protect the public from harm and to improve the quality of care.
The Standards
The Primary and Community Healthcare Standards are comprised of three standards.
Each of the three standards contain:
- a description of the standard
- a statement of intent
- a consumer outcome statement
- a list of 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
- a consumer outcome statement for each item heading
- actions, describing what is required to meet the standard
Where do the Primary and Community Healthcare Standards apply?
These standards apply to a wide range of primary and community healthcare settings, including single-discipline and multidisciplinary services with a focus on oral health, mental health and health promotion.
These services are often the first place people go for health care outside of a hospital or a specialist. They address the prevention, treatment and management of illness and injury, and the preservation of physical and mental wellbeing.
How to implement the Primary and Community Healthcare Standards
Healthcare services are encouraged to implement the Primary and Community Healthcare Standards to support safe and high-quality care. To receive formal recognition of implementation, you may be required or may choose to undertake a process called accreditation.
Accreditation is a quality assurance mechanism that tests whether relevant systems are in place to ensure that expected standards of safety and quality are met.
To achieve accreditation, you must complete an assessment by assessors from an independent accrediting agency to test if you are meeting the standards. The steps involved in this process are outlined on our accreditation page.
Digital Mental Health Module for Primary Care
The Digital Mental Health Module for Primary Care outlines a subset of actions from the National Safety and Quality Digital Mental Health Standards that can be used with the Primary and Community Healthcare Standards to complete an assessment to both sets of standards.
It only includes actions not already covered by the National Safety and Quality Primary and Community Healthcare Standards to avoid duplication and streamline the accreditation process.
This is for primary and community healthcare services who offer mental health services via a digital platform.
Services implementing both sets of standards will be assessed in a single assessment process.
Download the Digital Mental Health Module for Primary Care
If you are unsure if these standards are right for your service, please contact our Safety and Quality Advice Centre.
Resources
We have developed a wide range of resources to help you understand and implement the Primary and Community Healthcare Standards.
Our Guide for Healthcare Services provides critical support to services that are implementing the Primary and Community Healthcare Standards. It includes practical guidance and examples of evidence that can be used to implement the actions in a way that is appropriate to your healthcare service.
We have an implementation fact sheet for healthcare services, and an information fact sheet for consumers who are interested to learn more.
Resources about assessment and accreditation can be found on our accreditation page.
Transitioning from the NSQHS Standards to the Primary and Community Healthcare Standards
Primary and community healthcare services currently accredited to the first or second edition of our National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards may consider the Primary and Community Healthcare Standards more appropriate to their service model. We have resources to assist in transitioning from one standard to another, and you can also contact our Safety and Quality Advice Centre if you need assistance.
Our transitioning fact sheet provides overall guidance and advice about beginning the process of transitioning.
The Monitoring Tool helps you track evidence and the mapping resources can be used to map actions from the first edition and second edition of the NSQHS Standards to the Primary and Community Healthcare Standards.
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 all advisories on our advisories page.