Our healthcare standards apply to all Queensland public and licensed private acute and day hospitals. The standards also apply to individuals working in and/or for the hospital, including visiting medical officers and general practitioners with visiting rights. Our current standards are:
All Queensland healthcare providers (individuals or organisations) have a legal duty to establish, maintain and implement reasonable processes to improve the quality of their health services. Implementing our healthcare standards and meeting the reporting requirements is one way hospitals can demonstrate compliance with their
duty to improve.
We examine hospital compliance with our three healthcare standards through:
- monitoring of our healthcare complaints
- monitoring of reportable events
- audits
- random – of compliance with a specific standard or
- responsive – where we have concerns about a hospital’s compliance with our standards.
In December 2014, or earlier if required, we will review these three healthcare standards with a view to retiring them in 2015 if evidence suggests that practice has improved sufficiently in these areas.
Brief history
Legislation
Our legislative basis for making standards to improve the safety and quality of healthcare in Queensland remains and is not expected to change. We may make standards about any aspect of the quality of health services. Our authority to make standards comes from the Health Quality and Complaints Commission Act 2006 (HQCC Act), and includes the ability to adopt, apply or incorporate a standard or document from another source when making standards. We will exercise our power to make standards if we deem them necessary to foster an effective regulatory environment and drive compliance with healthcare providers’ legislated duty to improve.
If we decide to introduce a new standard or make a significant amendment to an existing standard, we will consult publicly and publish an impact assessment statement.
More information
Health Quality and Complaints Commission Healthcare Standards version 2.0 | effective 1 July 2010
Last updated 1 January 2013.