Understanding the Aged Care Quality Standards
The Aged Care Quality Standards provides the benchmark for the safety and quality of aged care accessed by older people in Australia. In late 2023, the Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards were released. This has provided more detail on what will become the new standard for care. It is anticipated that the strengthened standards will come into play on 1 July 2025 alongside the new Aged Care Act and the new Home Support Package.
The Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards are designed to improve outcomes for older people and set clear expectations for providers in delivering quality aged care. The final draft Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards are more measurable, more detailed and reflect the expected quality of aged care. They use clear language, minimise duplication and reflect the new Statement of Rights. The Standards also include a clinical focus with Standard 5: Clinical Care including Outcome 5.7 relating to palliative care and end-of-life care.
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What do the Standards cover?
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What does each Standard include?
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Standard 5 covers:
- Standard 1: The person
- Standard 2: The organisation
- Standard 3: The care and services
- Standard 4: The environment
- Standard 5: Clinical care (ACSQHC set the clinical care components)
- Standard 6: Food and nutrition
- Standard 7: The residential community
- An intent statement to add context.
- An expectation statement to outline, in first person, what older people can expect.
- An outcome statement which will be enforceable in legislation.
- Actions that demonstrate how providers can meet the outcome.
- Clinical governance
- Preventing and controlling infections in clinical care
- Safe and quality use of medicines
- Comprehensive care
- Clinical safety
- Cognitive impairment
- Palliative care and end of life care
The ELDAC Project is developing specific information to support aged care services address the Standards, particularly with respect to advance care planning and palliative care.