ACT Health has announced that surveyors from the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards (ACHS) have completed their onsite assessments of the Territory’s compliance with the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards.
It said the surveyors assessed ACT Health’s implementation of 33 core actions under five of the 10 National Standards that the ACHS assessed as not having been met during an initial visit in March.
“ACT Health has received advice from the surveyors that it meets the intent of all recommendations contained in the Not Met report,” ACT Health said.
“The surveyors will finalise their report in the coming days before providing it to the ACHS Council for formal consideration and confirmation.”
Interim Director-General at ACT Health, Michael De’Ath said he anticipated receiving the final survey report and written notification that ACT Health had achieved accreditation next month.
He said the result reflected ACT Health’s commitment to providing safe and quality healthcare services to the community.
“This is an excellent outcome and reflects the high quality of work being performed on a daily basis across ACT Health to improve the delivery of quality care and patient safety,” Mr De’Ath said.
“The surveyors were highly complimentary of what they observed throughout the onsite assessment and that is a credit to our many dedicated staff.”
Mr De’Ath said work had already begun within the Directorate to prepare ACT Health for the next round of accreditation assessments, which would be against new national standards that were due to come into effect from 1 January 2019.
“The accreditation process is part of a continuous cycle of improvement to ensure we deliver safe and high-quality health care to the Canberra community,” he said.
“We have more than 7,000 staff who come to work every day to ensure Canberrans get the quality health care they expect and deserve, and I would like to congratulate all of them for their role in ACT Health achieving accreditation.”
