Safety and Quality Corner – safe and quality care every day.

STARS’s first full accreditation against the NSQHS Standards is, as you know, 8-11 February (in 10 days).

There will be three assessors on site for four days, and they will spend most of their time in the hospital talking to you and your colleagues in the clinical and non clinical areas. They will want to see how you provide the excellent patient focused care you to do provide.

When they talk to you, you should simply tell them about the great work you do everyday helping to care for patients; that is all they will want to know. They will not ask you to explain how you use Standard 1, they will ask you how you assess risk, how you use the patient medical record, how you know the latest COVID directions.

They will not ask you to show how Standard 2 is applied in your ward. They will ask how do you involve patients in their care, how do you know the patient has consented to the care you are providing, how are patient involved in the quality improvements you are doing.

Here is a reminder of Standard 1 and 2

Standard 1    
Clinical governance: This standard helps to maintain and improve the reliability, safety, and quality of health care to our patients and their families.

We show we do this by: entering clinical incidents in RiskMan and actioning them, training all staff to enable them to do their work in the best way including mandatory training, and by always looking to improve how we deliver care.

Standard 2  
Partnering with Consumer: This standard ensures patients and their families are partners in their care and have a voice in improving the hospital

We show this by: always asking for feedback from our patients, involving them in their care planning and goal setting, handover by the bedside talking to the patient, and by having consumers (patients from STARS) on our governance committees so we can learn from their experience.

Thank you for the excellent safe and quality care you provide every day.

Ella van Raders
Director, Safety and Quality
Surgical Treatment and Rehabilitation Services (STARS)