Quality, safety and inclusion culture to support aged care workers to deliver quality care

What is the outcome you need to achieve?

The governing body must lead a culture of quality, safety and inclusion that supports aged care workers to provide quality funded aged care services by focussing on continuous improvement, embracing diversity and prioritising the safety, health and wellbeing of aged care workers.

Updates to guidance

An updated version of the strengthened Standards was published by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing on 18 February 2025. Please see here for more information Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards – February 2025 | Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.

The Commission is currently updating our guidance content to reflect these changes. Please ensure you check back regularly.

Actions

2.2.1

The governing body leads a positive culture of quality funded aged care services and continuous improvement and demonstrates that this culture exists within the organisation.

2.2.2

In strategic and business planning, the governing body:

prioritises the safety, health and wellbeing of aged care workers
proactively engages, listens, consults with aged care workers to leverage their expertise in delivering quality funded aged care services to individuals
communicates information to aged care workers that is relevant to aged care workers’ safety to support their delivery of quality funded aged care services
adheres to legislative requirements, and active consideration is given to organisational and operational risks, workforce needs and the wider organisational environment.

Why is this outcome important?

Outcome 2.2a explains providers’ obligations to make sure their governing body* involves workers* in the strategic and business planning, and governance* of care and services. This needs to have a focus on continuous improvement*.

The governing body* must monitor the care and services you provide through regular reviews. They must actively consider legislative requirements and the wider organisational, operational and workforce* risks and needs. This helps you to deliver safe and quality care* and services. It includes evaluating:

how effective your care and services are
the safety and wellbeing* of workers*.

By engaging, listening to and consulting workers* and reviewing relevant quality and safety data, the governing body* can identify areas for improvement. This is important to make sure your strategic and business planning addresses the needs of workers* and older people. Where information relates to workers’* safety, the governing body* should communicate relevant information to workers* to support their delivery of quality care*.

This helps the governing body* to lead a positive culture of continuous improvement* and quality care* and services that are accessible and appropriate.

You need to give focus to:

strategic and business planning.

Update to guidance

The Commission is currently updating our guidance content to reflect these changes. Please ensure you check back regularly.

Key tasks

Providers(active tab)

Providers

Report concerns about the organisation’s culture of quality care* and services.

Regularly* report quality performance information and performance monitoring to the governing body* (Outcome 2.3).

Gather and report information about your organisation’s quality, safety and inclusion culture (Outcome 2.3) and provide this to your governing body* to support their strategic and business planning for workers*. This information can come from:

feedback* and complaints* from workers* (Outcome 2.6a)
older people’s care and service documents (Outcome 3.1)
results from evaluating workers’* performance and how well they’re using the quality system* (Outcome 2.9).

Review this information to encourage continuous improvement* in how you and your workers* deliver care and services in your day-to-day operations.

Make sure workers* follow the Code of Conduct for Aged Care. This will help your organisation and workers* to:

promote a safe and inclusive environment
protect older people from harm.

Talk with workers* to:

leverage their expertise in delivering quality care and services to older people
find out their needs for safety, health and wellbeing*. Prioritise and monitor the safety, health and wellbeing* of your workers*. Do this by following the governing body’s* strategic and business plan. For example, identify instances where you haven’t met workforce* health and safety needs. This can include one-off occurrences or organisation-wide issues. You may find this through feedback* and complaints* from workers (Outcome 2.6a). Report this to the governing body*.