What Are the NSQHS Standards? And Why They Now Matter Beyond Hospitals

By CertCrowd Team

The National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards were originally designed to lift the quality and safety of care in Australian hospitals. But things have changed.

Today, NSQHS accreditation is expanding from public and private hospitals into allied health, cosmetic surgery, mental health services, day surgeries, medical centres, and beyond.

If you're a health provider, big or small, NSQHS is likely coming for you. But it doesn't have to be complicated or expensive.

Let's break down what the standards are, who needs to comply, and how CertCrowd makes it easier than ever to get started.

A Quick History of the NSQHS Standards

The NSQHS Standards were developed by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) and first released in 2011. The goal was simple but ambitious:

"Protect the public from harm and improve the quality of health service provision."

The standards set minimum expectations for health service organisations in delivering safe, high-quality care, and they've been a mandatory requirement for hospitals and day procedure services ever since.

The current version, NSQHS Standards (2nd edition), came into effect in 2017 and reflects updated thinking around governance, risk, infection control, and consumer-centred care.

NSQHS Is No Longer Just for Hospitals

In recent years, there's been growing pressure from regulators, insurers, and the public to apply NSQHS to a broader range of health providers, including:

Allied health providers (e.g. physiotherapy, podiatry, dietetics)
Cosmetic and plastic surgery clinics
Mental health and counselling services
Sleep clinics and diagnostic imaging
GP superclinics and medical centres

In some states and under certain licensing regimes, NSQHS accreditation is becoming a condition of practice or a strong competitive advantage when seeking referrals or partnerships.

What Are the NSQHS Standards?

The second edition of NSQHS includes eight standards, each focusing on a critical area of safety and quality:

Clinical Governance
- Leadership, governance, and culture of safety
Partnering with Consumers
- Shared decision-making and communication
Preventing and Controlling Infections
- Hygiene, sterilisation, outbreak management
Medication Safety
- Prescribing, dispensing, administering medications
Comprehensive Care
- Integrated, holistic, and coordinated care planning
Communicating for Safety
- Information transfer and documentation
Blood Management
- Blood products and transfusion safety
Recognising and Responding to Acute Deterioration
- Early warning systems and escalation protocols

Each standard is backed by actions that must be implemented, monitored, and demonstrated to external assessors during accreditation.

Why the NSQHS Standards Matter

🧭 They're becoming mandatory in more health sectors
💡 They improve patient outcomes through structured processes and risk reduction
📄 They reduce legal exposure and show regulators and insurers that you're serious about compliance
✅ They support better governance and clinical accountability
💬 They enhance consumer trust in an increasingly competitive healthcare market

Accreditation isn't just a checkbox. It's a badge of quality.

The Challenge: Complexity, Cost, and Confusion

For smaller health services, NSQHS compliance can feel overwhelming:

Complex standards language
Dozens of policies and procedures
Requirements for incident registers, risk registers, audits, reviews, etc.
Expensive consultants or clunky Excel systems

That's where CertCrowd comes in.

CertCrowd: NSQHS Compliance That's Affordable and Accessible

CertCrowd gives healthcare providers of any size a freemium digital platform to manage compliance with NSQHS and other frameworks.

With CertCrowd you get:

✅ Ready-to-use NSQHS policy templates and workflows
✅ Digital registers for incidents, complaints, and audits
✅ Evidence upload and version control
✅ Actions, checklists, and gap analysis tools
✅ Easy collaboration with staff and external assessors

Whether you're preparing for initial accreditation or ongoing surveillance, CertCrowd makes it simple to manage your system in one place with no setup costs and nothing to install.

TL;DR: NSQHS Is Expanding. CertCrowd Has Your Back.

The NSQHS Standards are now reaching far beyond hospitals, and every health provider should be taking notice.

With CertCrowd, you can start for free and build a compliant, scalable system that meets the expectations of regulators, insurers, and patients alike.

📥 Start building your NSQHS-ready system today at certcrowd.com