Aged Care Standards in Focus: Standard Three – Personal & Clinical Care

Posted on July 2nd, 2019

In this series of articles we look at the new Aged Care Standards that commenced from 1st July 2019.

Following on from our article on standard two for the new aged care standards, here we would like to introduce Standard 3 which relates to Personal and Clinical Care.

Standard 3: Personal and Clinical Care

I get personal care, clinical care, or both personal care and clinical care, that is safe and right for me.

CentacareCQ delivers safe and effective personal care, clinical care, or both personal care and clinical care, in accordance with the consumer’s needs, goals and preferences to optimise health and well-being.

Purpose and scope of the Standard

Clients and the community expect the safe, effective and quality delivery of personal and clinical care. The Standard applies to all services delivering personal and clinical care specified in the Quality of Care Principles of 2014.

Personal and clinical care and services can include some of which CentacareCQ does not provide at this time however we do broker some services to outside organisations:

• supervising or helping with bathing, showering, personal hygiene and dressing
• providing personal mobility aids and communication assistance for consumers with impaired hearing, sight or speech
• nursing services, such as catheter care and wound management
• services aimed at getting back or improving a consumer’s independence or daily living activities
• specialised therapy services, such as support for consumers living with cognitive impairment.

Most aged care organisations deliver good outcomes for consumers. However, clients don’t always receive care from organisations in a safe and effective way. Harmful events that organisations could have prevented can continue to happen in aged care service delivery.

This Standard highlights several key areas where organisations need to do more to make sure they keep clients safe and that they receive the best possible care and services.

The guidance for this Standard is not clinical guidance. It doesn’t include instructions or ‘how to’ information on the different aspects of care. Organisations need to develop and implement an approach that makes sure they are providing safe and effective personal and clinical care to clients.

This approach needs to be in line with best practice evidence and meet the client’s needs, goals and preferences. CentacareCQ is expected to then have policies and procedures that support the workforce to deliver care and treatment in line with this approach.

Your feedback is important to us

Do you feel CentacareCQ has met, exceeded or fallen short of this standard?

Let us know by completing our feedback form.