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New legislation passed in Aged Care

Posted on by Quentin bngonline

Last week the government introduced two new aged care bills to the House of Representatives, which together respond to a number of recommendations from the Aged Care Royal Commission’s final report.  

Royal Commission Response Bill

Just a week later, the first bill, the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response) Bill 2022, has now passed through both houses. Some of the key changes that this bill introduces include:

  • Introducing the new AN-ACC funding model which will replace the existing ACFI model.
  • A Code of Conduct that will apply to approved providers, their aged care workers and governing bodies. It will be based on the NDIS Code of Conduct and will be implemented from 1 December 2022.
  • Extending the Serious Incident Reporting Scheme (SIRS) to include home care by 1 December 2022.
  • From 1 December 2022 there will be new governance responsibilities around suitability requirements for key personnel and other requirements including:
    • The requirement to notify the Commission of changes to key personnel or changes to the suitability of key personnel;
    • At least every 12 months the provider must consider the suitability of all key personnel and be reasonably satisfied that they are suitable to be involved in the provision of aged care;
    • The provider must ensure that a majority of the members of the governing body are independent non-executive members, and at least one member of the governing body has experience in the provision of clinical care. (This does not apply if the governing body has fewer than 5 members or provides aged care service to less than 40 recipients, or is an Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation).
    • Providers must establish a quality care advisory body that:
      • Complies with the requirements specified in the Accountability Principles; and
      • Gives the governing body a written report about the quality of care being delivered at least once every 6 months.
    • The governing body must respond in writing to those reports and other feedback from the advisory body.
  • Changes to restrictive practices arrangements to address unintended outcomes due to the interaction with state and territory guardianship and consent laws.
  • A requirement for the Department of Health and Aged Care to publish information about the quality of aged care provided through an aged care service, and the performance of the approved provider in relation to responsibilities and standards under the Aged Care Act by the end of 2022.

Implementing Care Reform Bill

The second bill, the Aged Care Amendment (Implementing Care Reform) Bill 2022, has been referred to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, with an expected report date of 31 August 2022, and includes:

  • mandatory requirements for there to be a registered nurse on site 24 hours a day at all residential aged care facilities starting from 1 July 2023;
  • caps on home care charges from 1 January 2023; and
  • improvements to transparency of information from 1 December 2022.

Stay in the loop

Providers are encouraged to stay across these changes as a number of the reforms are expected to come into place soon, with many being implemented before the end of the year. We will keep you updated!

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Moving towards best practice service delivery in aged care

Posted on by Quentin bngonline

The Aged Care Quality Standards are an important part of an organisation’s quality and compliance benchmarking. However, for providers looking to go beyond their baseline obligations, SPP hosts a number of best practice self-assessments for aged care. These guidelines and standards are designed to complement your ACQS compliance, and provide further guidance across targeted areas of service delivery and governance.

Aged Care – Clinical Governance

The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission has developed guidance on clinical governance in aged care to assist aged care providers to develop and review their clinical governance framework.

We’ve made digesting that guidance easier for providers.  By working through our Aged Care – Clinical Governance self-assessment module, you can identify key issues that need to be addressed in a clinical governance framework, as well as identify gaps and opportunities for improvement.

Aged Care Diversity Framework

The Aged Care Diversity Framework was developed by the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care. The Aged Care Diversity Framework includes four Diversity Action Plans which are designed to help providers address barriers faced by different groups, being all diverse older people, older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, older CALD people, and LGBTI elders.

We have a self-assessment module for each of the Action Plans, which allows providers to work through three different levels, according to what is most relevant to their organisation: foundational actions, next steps and leading the way.

Inclusive Service Standards

The Inclusive Service Standards were developed by the Centre for Cultural Diversity in Ageing to assist aged care providers in the development and the delivery of inclusive services to all consumers. 

They provide a framework for services to adapt and improve their services and organisational practices so they are welcoming, safe and accessible.

Meeting the performance measures listed in this assessment provides evidence that an organisation has embedded an inclusive, non-discriminatory approach to its delivery of care and services.  

Dementia Australia Quality Care Recommendations

Dementia Australia’s Quality Care Recommendations have been developed by people living with dementia, their families and carers in the context of the new Aged Care Quality Standards. Each of the eight Standards has a dementia-specific recommendation on how that Standard needs to be met when providing any aged care service to a person living with dementia, their families, carers and advocates. 

This module provides organisations with further insight and direction on each of the Aged Care Quality Standards, through the lens of dementia-friendly care.

National Guidelines for Spiritual Care in Aged Care

The National Guidelines for Spiritual Care in Aged Care were developed by Meaningful Ageing Australia, who state:

Spirituality is integral to quality of life and well-being, and should be accessible to all older people in a way that is meaningful to their beliefs, culture and circumstances.

The Guidelines are designed specifically for offering spiritual care and support to older people living in residential aged care, or receiving care and support through home care packages. They are intended to support organisations to embed spirituality into key systems and processes with the goal that all older people (and their loved ones) are offered best-practice in spiritual care.

ACSA Wellness and Reablement Roadmap

The Wellness and Reablement Roadmap was developed by ACSA to help CHSP providers to self-assess their progress in integrating wellness and reablement principles into core service delivery. 

Taking a wellness and reablement approach to service design and delivery enables service providers to focus on outcomes for individuals rather than service outputs.

The Wellness and Reablement Roadmap provides a framework for discussions at all levels within an organisation to help providers identify “what they are doing well” and “what actions need to be taken to improve performance” in progressing, managing and measuring wellness and reablement.

Want to learn more?

Our modules for the standards and guidelines detailed above are available in SPP under the Aged Care – towards best practice drop-down header. They can be accessed and progressed at any time, at your own pace, as relevant to the needs of your organisation. You can automatically generate a quality improvement plan for each specific module you follow.

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self-assessments in SPP.

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The importance of a director’s work health and safety obligations

Posted on by Quentin bngonline

Following the death of Anne Marie Smith in 2020, two directors of a disability health service provider have recently been charged with criminal neglect and failure to comply with a health and safety duty of care. This tragic case has put a spotlight on the health and safety obligations of care providers and their directors.

Employers

Employers have a number of responsibilities regarding the duty of care they owe employees, visitors and others. SafeWork SA Executive Director, Martyn Campbell, speaking on the matter, said:

“…employers have a duty to provide a safe system of work to their workers, visitors and others who come into the workplace. This included Annie in this case. Her home became a workplace as soon as the carer entered it to do her work.”

It is important for providers to bear in mind the extent of their duty of care. Providers must ensure that where services are being delivered in homes, safe systems of work must still be followed, even though services may be out of the direct line of sight of the provider.

Directors

Directors, CEOs and governing body members of an organisation have an additional duty, known as the ‘due diligence’ requirement, to ensure that an organisation has work health and safety systems in place and that those systems are followed. In the case of Anne Marie Smith’s death, it is alleged the company directors failed in this duty.

The ‘due diligence’ requirement originates from section 27 of the model Work Health and Safety Act, which requires that officers of an organisation exercise due diligence to ensure that the organisation complies with work health and safety legislation.

Exercising due diligence involves:

  • acquiring up-to-date knowledge of WHS matters,
  • understanding the nature and risks of the operations of the organisation, and
  • ensuring the organisation uses appropriate resources to minimise WHS risks.

An officer must take an active and inquisitive role in WHS matters to satisfy their duty.

An ‘officer’ includes governing body directors and the secretary, as well as other people who make or take part in decisions which affect the whole organisation. People who sit on a governing body board or a committee on a voluntary basis are still regarded as officers.

The officer duty recognises that officers have corporate governance responsibilities and, through their decisions and behaviour, strongly influence the culture and accountability of the organisation. They can influence important decisions on the resources that will be made available for the purposes of WHS, and the policies that will be developed to support compliance by the organisation with the model Work Health and Safety Act.

How can Standards and Performance Pathways assist?

The officer duty is therefore an important responsibility of board and governing body members. We have developed a new self-assessment module in SPP to help governing body members and other officers ensure they are complying with their responsibilities under section 27 of the WHS Act.

The module guides officers through the key components of section 27(5) of the WHS Act and provides additional examples of ‘reasonable steps’ that may be taken when executing the duty. The module also details the kinds of resources, processes and procedures that officers will need to ensure their organisation has in place.

Review your obligations in SPP.

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A closer look at the National Quality Framework

Posted on by Quentin bngonline

The National Quality Framework is a national approach to regulation and quality improvement in early childhood education and care, and outside school hours care services across Australia. The National Quality Framework applies to most childcare providers and services, including centre-based day care, family day care, outside school hours care, and preschool and kindergarten.

The National Quality Framework is made up of the:

  • National Law and Regulations;
  • National Quality Standard; and
  • National Approved Learning Frameworks. 

The National Law and Regulations

The National Law and Regulations outline the legal obligations for providers and explain the functions of the state and territory regulatory authorities. They include things like requirements for staff qualifications and requirements for the number of staff working in services with children.

We have a self-assessment in SPP for the National Law and Regulations which ensures providers are aware of, and monitoring their compliance with, the sections and regulations of the National Law and National Regulations that are most relevant to each of the seven Quality Areas of the National Quality Standard.

The National Quality Standard

The National Quality Standard includes seven quality areas that form the basis of ratings and assessment. Services are assessed and rated against the seven quality areas:

  1. Educational program and practice
  2. Children’s health and safety
  3. Physical environment
  4. Staffing arrangements
  5. Relationships with children
  6. Collaborative partnerships with families and communities
  7. Governance and leadership

We also have modules in SPP for the National Quality Standard, including a stand-alone module which we developed in consultation with a provider of early childhood education and outside school hours care. Our module closely aligns with ACECQA’s self-assessment tool, and allows providers to track each requirement of the National Quality Standard, and make qualitative comments throughout.

The National Approved Learning Frameworks

Under the National Law and Regulations, services are required to base their educational program on one of the approved learning frameworks. There are two nationally approved learning frameworks:

  • Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia; and
  • My Time, Our Place: Framework for School Age Care in Australia.

Self-assessments for both approved learning frameworks are available in SPP.

Update of the National Approved Learning Frameworks

Both frameworks are currently undergoing a consultation and review process, to ensure that they reflect contemporary developments in practice and knowledge. The review commenced in April 2021 and is being delivered over three stages.

Stages one and two have already been completed and included a literature review, surveys and stakeholder feedback. Some areas for improvement that came out of the discussion papers included strengthening Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives throughout the framework, strengthening the principle of ongoing learning, introducing a new sustainability principle and strengthening partnerships to include other professionals. 

Stage three, which is currently underway, involves practitioners piloting the potential updates in their services. We are monitoring this review process and we will update our existing modules in SPP when the updated Standards are finalised. For more information on the updates, you can refer to ACECQA’s website or the Approved Learning Frameworks update website.

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Policy development and implementation: working towards best practice

Posted on by Quentin bngonline

Whatever standards apply to the services your organisation delivers, they will require you to implement a core group of policies and procedures that cover both operations and service delivery. They will also require you to ensure that those policies and procedures are understood by all stakeholders, and are consistently followed across your organisation. 

These requirements are not just for the sake of compliance and ‘red tape’.  They are to help your organisation put in place procedures for the consistent delivery of safe, high-quality services for your clients, that are responsive to their individual needs.

So, how can you work towards best practice in policy development and implementation?

What drives new policy development?

The first reference point for policy development should be the regulations and standards that apply to your organisation.  You could create a list of mandatory policies and procedures based on these obligations – or if you use SPP, you will be prompted as you go through your self-assessment journey.

The next stage is identifying any gaps in your organisation’s policies and procedures. Gaps can be identified by undertaking regular detailed compliance checks against relevant standards and guidelines in SPP.

Gaps can also be identified through continuous quality improvement cycles. Feeding into CQI should be:

  • Regular reviews
  • Incidents & near misses
  • Feedback
  • Complaints

Policy development process

The process of good policy development involves:

  1. Issue identification: Awareness of a gap drives policy development – need may be identified through an incident or near-miss, feedback or regulatory requirements.
  2. Policy analysis/context: Determine the context in which a policy should be developed. Why is the policy needed? Who are the stakeholders? What is the targeted outcome?
  3. Consultation: Determine who should take responsibility; research and prepare a draft policy for wider consultation; revise the draft policy based on feedback.
  4. Decision: Present the final draft along with the implementation plan to the Board or management for approval.
  5. Implementation: Allocate appropriate resources to support broad implementation of the policy; ensure it is understood and consistently followed.
  6. Communication and promotion: Promote the policy broadly and regularly.  Make the policy available in different formats and languages (for accessibility).
  7. Review and evaluation: Review and update the policy regularly, usually annually. It is good practice to include review dates in a board governance calendar, as well as in the policy itself.

Policy contents

Organisational policies will vary depending on topic matter and purpose, but should be comprehensive, and should generally contain the following sections:

  1. Rationale or purpose statement:  Reason for issuing the policy and the desired effect or outcome.
  2. Scope or coverage statement: State who is covered and affected by the policy, and who may be exempt.
  3. Date: State when the policy comes into force.
  4. Definitions: Include clear and unambiguous definitions for terms and concepts in the
    document.
  5. Responsibilities: State who is responsible for carrying out individual policy statements.
  6. Policy statement/s: Specific regulations, requirements or modifications to organisational
    behaviour.
  7. Procedures: Policies and procedures may be separate documents, however if you are drafting an operational policy, it should detail set procedures to be followed.
  8. Date of review:  Specify date set for review and frequency of reviews.

Organisational policy development: key considerations

Best practice approaches to developing and implementing policies include:

  • Accessibility: Ensuring policies are made widely available and in accessible formats.
  • Clarity: Ensuring policies are written in a clear, concise manner using plain English.
  • Accountability: Policies and procedures should set out who is accountable for implementing the procedures, and also accountability for updating/maintaining the currency of the policy.

Implementation: introducing policies to staff and implementing them across your organisation

Finalising a set of policies and procedures that govern how your organisation operates and delivers services is one thing – but implementation is even more important.  That is, ensuring that all workers understand and follow them consistently, and that your clients also understand them where relevant.

Boards play an important role, and should take ownership in promoting policies and ensuring that staff are aware of them.

Policies should be published somewhere accessible, e.g. staff intranet – and in a form that can be understood by the audience. Consider: do you have workers who speak English as a second language?

However, publishing is not enough. Implementation should include:

  • Onboarding and orientation for new staff, that includes briefing on organisational policies.
  • Refresher training for staff on organisational policies.
  • Keeping track of whether staff have read policies – this could be via a staff training register or a list of key documents that staff must read and sign.
  • Ensure that all current policies are centrally accessible, and updated policies are re-distributed to staff/stakeholders.
  • Hold a drill or run-through of procedures that involve staff/stakeholders.

What areas and requests are most popular?

We provide hundreds of policy templates and resources to our SPP subscribers. We develop new ones as regulatory requirements change, and also in response to popular requests. Here are some of the key areas community and health service providers are focused on currently:

Governance

  • Good governance is a cornerstone of a successful and productive organisation.
  • SPP hosts a broad suite of resources on governance and management to help organisations establish and maintain best practice leadership processes, including the Governing body meeting template and Governance and management good practice info sheet.

Easy English

  • A consistent theme throughout many standards is that information must be provided to clients in the language, mode of communication and terms that the client is most likely to understand.
  • In response to requests from providers, we’ve developed easy English policies on incidents, child rights, client rights, complaints and privacy.

Emergency and disaster management

  • We’ve recently released a selection of new and updated resources in response to an increased focus on emergency and disaster management across a number of Australian health and service standards.

Child safety

  • Any organisation providing services to, or interacting with, children should have child safe policies and procedures in place that are consistent with the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations (and state Child Safe Standards, if in NSW or VIC).

How can Standards and Performance Pathways assist?

  • Gap analysis: SPP performs an automatic gap analysis, generating ‘Action Texts’ for providers to address, where they are not meeting a requirement.
  • Linked resources and templates: Access policy templates and resources throughout the self-assessment journey, relevant to gaps in compliance.
  • Sector updates and new resource alerts: PDF updates available within the platform keep organisations informed of relevant updates.

For a summary of this blog post, click here to access our ‘Best Practice in Organisational Policy Development’ slide deck.

 

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NASASV’s National Standards now live in SPP

Posted on by Quentin bngonline

The National Association of Services Against Sexual Violence (NASASV) is the peak body for specialist organisations who provide prevention and response services to people who are at risk of, or experience, sexual violence in Australia.

NASASV is committed to “addressing inequalities in society which perpetrate sexual violence whilst working collaboratively with service systems and communities to ensure that prevalence rates of sexual assault reduce”. NASASV’s vision is “to eliminate sexual violence and have a society free of all forms of oppression.”

In 2020-21, NASASV was engaged by the Commonwealth Department of Social Services to develop the third edition of the National Standards of Practice Manual for Services against Sexual Violence (the National Standards). The Third Edition supersedes the second, which was produced by NASASV in 2015.

About the specialist sexual violence sector

The National Standards apply to organisations that provide specialist sexual violence services. Working with victim-survivors of sexual violence requires complex and specialised knowledge and experience. Many victim-survivors have experienced multiple forms of abuse or multiple instances of abuse.

There is increasing understanding that the effect of multiple instances of abuse on an individual is cumulative, leading to victim-survivors often facing a range of physical and mental health difficulties. Specialist sexual violence services require knowledge of a range of associated issues, services and systems, some of which include:

  • mental health;
  • alcohol and other drugs;
  • domestic and family violence;
  • sexual health;
  • legal systems, particularly criminal and family law;
  • child protection;
  • relationship issues;
  • social security; and
  • homelessness and housing.

Structure of the Standards

The ten standards in the previous version have been condensed into seven standards in the Third Edition:

  • Valuing access for all clients;
  • Valuing client experience at the service;
  • Valuing sound clinical interventions;
  • Valuing advocacy, collaboration and community engagement;
  • Valuing staff;
  • Valuing a stable organisation, good governance and effective systems; and
  • Valuing innovation and quality improvement.

Each standard sets out the indicators of what needs to be in place for organisations to be “Meeting National Standards”, as well as additional indicators that demonstrate “Exceeding National Standards”.

All specialist sexual violence services should be meeting the National Standards, and organisations that want to work towards best practice can aim to exceed the National Standards. Responsibility for meeting each standard involves the organisation, as well as all staff, including clinical and counselling staff.

Each standard provides significant detail and context for the indicators that are required to demonstrate meeting and exceeding the standard.

Self-assessment now live in SPP!

We have developed seven self-assessments in SPP for NASASV’s National Standards, one for each standard. The seven self-assessments provide ease of management when following the National Standards, and allow you to provide qualitative comments about how you are meeting each standard at a more detailed level.

To take a closer look at the new self-assessments for the National Standards, log in to SPP.  

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Lessons from the pandemic: how Standards have evolved

Posted on by Quentin bngonline

We’re now two years into the pandemic, and the care and support sector has had to make some major adjustments to their service delivery in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

A number of standards have been amended or updated with significant new changes, to provide guidance on improving and standardising infection control processes, as well as ensuring that there are processes to manage workforce capacity and disaster readiness.

We’ve updated our self-assessments in SPP to reflect these changes, and thought it would be helpful to summarise the core themes that have emerged across the different major standards.  

Core infection control and disaster response themes

The core themes that have appeared consistently in standards updates include:

  • ensuring the workforce has the capacity, skills, training and equipment to implement infection prevention and control systems,
  • planning for and sourcing an alternative workforce in the event of disruptions,
  • developing, testing and reviewing an emergency and disaster management plan,
  • reporting to the governing body on infection control processes and implementation/testing of the emergency and disaster management plan,
  • testing, fitting and training in the use of PPE,
  • training in hand hygiene, respiratory hygiene and cough etiquette,
  • implementing stringent processes for communicating relevant information to family, patients and carers,
  • undertaking routine environmental cleaning,
  • ensuring workplace policies and procedures are in line with the relevant state or territory public health requirements,
  • managing movement of staff between areas and supporting staff required to isolate, and
  • procedures for waste management including safe storage and disposal of clinical waste.

These are some key areas that service providers should be addressing to ensure they are on top of their compliance requirements. Providers should check that they are familiar with any updates to standards that apply to their organisation. SPP can assist you with this, as we always update the modules on our platform in response to changes to standards.

Here are the main standards that have been updated to incorporate infection control requirements so far:

The updated Standards

National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards (NSQHS)

Changes to the NSQHS were introduced in May 2021 and include requirements to:

  • plan for public health and pandemic risks,
  • ensure the workforce has the capacity, skills, training and equipment to implement infection prevention and control systems,
  • test, fit, train workers and use PPE, and
  • ensure policies and procedures are in line with the relevant state or territory public health requirements.

NDIS Practice Standards

In November 2021 the NDIS Commission released a number of changes to these standards, to address:

  • planning for alternative workforce arrangements in the event of disruptions,
  • developing, testing, and reviewing emergency and disaster management plans,
  • implementing infection prevention and control precautions throughout all settings,
  • ongoing training on and supplies of PPE for workers, and
  • waste management including safe disposal of clinical waste.

QIC Health and Community Service Standards

In February this year, an updated version of the QIC Standards was released, with updates addressing infection control requirements including:

  • staff training in hand hygiene,
  • infection prevention management program aligning with state and territory guidelines,
  • regular cleaning of the environment, and
  • waste management.

Australian Community Industry Standard

The Australian Community Industry Standard was also updated towards the end of last year to include the following infection prevention and control requirements:

  • workplace preparation for pandemic,
  • workforce response to pandemic consistent with advice from health authorities, and
  • implementing and documenting an outbreak management plan.

RACGP Standards for General Practitioners

The RACGP Standards have seen a number of updates throughout 2021 and more recently in 2022, with the most recent update being in February 2022. The updated requirements address:

  • increased requirements around telehealth consultations (e.g. ensuring privacy etc.),
  • managing the risk of cross infection during a home visit,
  • updated processes for isolating patients and traceability processes for identifying patients who have used instruments,
  • establishing protocols for managing outbreaks of infectious disease in line with local, state and national guidance, and
  • environmental cleaning.

Aged Care Quality Standards

While the Aged Care Quality Standards haven’t been updated with new infection control requirements, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission has released a number of resources to guide providers in their implementation of infection control requirements. 

Resources to help you

We’ve developed and updated a number of resources in our platform to assist providers to manage infection control requirements under the standards that apply to them, as well as implement best practice processes. Here are some examples of how we can help:

  • a module for the “First 24 hours – managing COVID-19 in a residential aged care facility”,
  • a module to guide organisations to implement COVID-safe operations based on recommendations from Safe Work Australia,
  • a module to guide organisations through the components they should address in developing infection control / respiratory outbreak plan based on recommendations from various sources including the Department of Health, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, and the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission,
  • resource templates including:
    • an outbreak management plan checklist,
    • an information sheet for employers on staff vaccination against COVID-19,
    • first 24 hours – managing COVID-19 in a Residential Aged Care facility checklist,
    • an emergency and disaster management plan,
    • emergency and disaster management procedures,
    • working from home policy,
    • working from home agreement,
    • client risk assessment.

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Conducting NDIS Practice Reviews

Posted on by Quentin bngonline

The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission recommends that all providers undertake Practice Reviews as part of the continuous improvement processes, to ensure that their governance and service delivery processes are aligned with the expectations of participants.

A Practice Review is a reflective process which generally involves simple discussions with participants and support workers, with the aim of understanding the experience of participants, and improving service quality. Practice Reviews generally focus on a specific area of a provider’s services and help providers to actively learn from incidents or near misses to reduce the risk of reoccurrence in the future.

Regulatory context

Practice Reviews are not a regulatory obligation under the NDIS Practice Standards. They should, however, form a part of a provider’s incident management and quality improvement systems.

Practice Reviews will help to establish the contributing causes to an incident or near miss. Understanding the ‘how and why’ behind each incident will help you to make the best decisions in improving your processes following an incident.

Co-design

In recent years there has been increasing focus in the community sector on co-design and consumer engagement from regulators and industry groups alike. Put simply, co-design is the involvement of participants, their families, support workers and other staff in the design and implementation of care and services. Co-design is a central concept of NDIS Practice Reviews and will give participants the power and freedom to shape the way they receive services.

For more information about implementing co-design, see our blog post on the topic.

When to conduct a Practice Review

Practice Reviews can be conducted whenever a provider considers it to be an appropriate time. However, there are certain triggers which may help to determine when a Practice Review should be undertaken. These triggers include things like changes in health or behavioural needs, increased number of incidents or injuries, WHS breaches or changes in workplace atmosphere. In response to patterns identified during regular review of incident records, providers should consider undertaking a Practice Review.

How to conduct a Practice Review

Practice Reviews may involve support workers and other relevant people; however, they must involve participants. The Commission has outlined four principles which should be observed when conducting a Practice Review:

  • People with disability have a right to safe, innovative, high-quality support.
  • People with disability are experts in their own lives.
  • Continuous improvement is fundamental to high quality support.
  • Best practice is the goal that all providers strive to achieve.

Central to the NDIS Commission’s messaging regarding Practice Reviews is the imperative that people involved in Practice Reviews should be made to feel comfortable voicing their concerns, and should be free from facing consequences for doing so. It is also crucial to understand and respect each participant’s communication needs before a Practice Review is undertaken, and ensure that everyone involved understands the purpose of a Practice Review and what it involves.

How BNG can help

To help you conduct Practice Reviews we have developed a template to guide your organisation through the steps before, during and after a Practice Review.  

As a Practice Review is essentially a short discussion, our template includes questions and prompts to help you understand how your services are being received by participants.

You can find the new template under Disability Resources in the Reading Room, or search for “Practice Review”. If you don’t have an SPP account, click here to visit our sign-up page.

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2021 – that’s a wrap!

Posted on by Quentin bngonline

It has certainly been a busy year for service providers and compliance professionals in our sector. Providers have been truly tested by the challenges of the pandemic and a changing regulatory landscape. We invite you to reflect with us on the key developments of this past year.

Child safety

In the child safety space, progress has been underway over the last couple of years to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. We published a blog post on this topic in March of this year.

On 1 July 2021, the new Victorian Child Safe Standards were released, bringing these standards into alignment with the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations. Our mapped self-assessment for the Victorian Child Safe Standards is available on SPP.

NSW followed in a similar vein and in November 2021, legislation passed in NSW Parliament mandating compliance with the NSW Child Safe Standards by certain ‘child safe organisations’. The NSW Child Safe Standards, which also map to the National Principles, can be accessed in SPP.

At present, Australian Catholic Safeguarding Ltd is finalising the Second Edition of the National Catholic Safeguarding Standards, and we expect to be providing assessment modules of these standards early in the New Year.

Aged care

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety was the focal point for aged care this year, with some regulatory changes already implemented and others underway.

The Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS) brought in new compliance requirements for residential aged care providers in April. Our Incident Management Procedures (Aged Care SIRS) Policy can help get you up to speed on this. In correlation with SIRS, the Aged Care Quality Standards were updated to include a requirement on incident management, and our ACQS self-assessments have been updated accordingly.

Rules around use of restrictive practices changed, with shift in terminology from ‘restraints’ to ‘restrictive practices’, bringing aged care into alignment with disability regulation. Our updated Use of Restrictive Practices (Aged Care) Policy reflects this.

This year we released an educative version of the Aged Care Quality Standards on SPP, based on the Commission’s Guidance and Resources for Providers document, and which walks providers through their requirements in greater depth. We have also released the Board Governance Toolkit, a comprehensive suite of resources designed specifically to support board members to fulfil their responsibilities under the Aged Care Quality Standards.

Disability

In late 2021, the NDIS Practice Standards saw their biggest overhaul since their inception. The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission identified emergency and disaster management and mealtime management/swallowing problems as key focal areas for additional guidance and regulation, and brought in three new Practice Standards to reflect this. In addition, a number of Quality Indicators were added and amended, reflecting a focus on infection control, staff training, individualised risk assessments and insurance requirements. Our blog post will flesh this out for you.

All changes to the NDIS Practice Standards are available for completion in SPP, and you can choose from mapped or stand-alone modules, depending on your organisation’s needs.

Health care

The National Safety and Quality Healthcare Service Standards (Second edition) were updated in 2021, to include new requirements around infection control. We added two new modules to our NSQHS self-assessment on SPP to address the new Standard 3 – Preventing and Controlling Infections.

The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care has also begun releasing a number of new standards, aiming to ensure a consistent approach to safe and high-quality health care across different service environments. In 2021, we added self-assessment modules for the National Safety and Quality Digital Mental Health Standards and the National Safety and Quality Primary and Community Healthcare Standards to SPP, and we will be closely tracking the development of the National Safety and Quality Mental Health Standards for Community Managed Organisations.

During 2021 we also released three new modules for the RACGP Standards for general practices (5th edition). We worked closely together with the RACGP to ensure that all of the standards, criteria and indicators in each module are reflected in detail in SPP’s self-assessments.

ISO

ISO standards are popular accreditations amongst our users, and this year we were pleased to add ISO 27001 Information Security Management Systems to SPP. ISO 27001 is an internationally recognised standard that requires organisations to implement an Information Security Management System (ISMS). The Australian federal government requires ISO 27001 certification for all providers of employment skills training and disability employment services, and a number of health and community service providers also choose to follow this standard.

All the best for the holiday period!

The past 12 months have definitely been jam-packed, and we expect 2022 will be just as busy.

We thank you all for your continued collaboration, and from everyone in the BNG team, we wish you a safe and happy holiday season.

See you next year!

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