The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care

The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) leads and
coordinates national improvements in safety and quality in health care. It has developed a
framework for safe and high quality care with three core principles – that care is consumer
centred, driven by information, and organised for safety (ACSQHC, 2010).
In addition to this framework, ACSQHC have developed National Safety and Quality Health
Service (NSQHS) Standards to ‘protect the public from harm and to improve the quality of
health service provision’ (ACSQHC, 2017, p. 5). The Registered Nurse is integral to every
standard that has been developed by the ACSQHC.
This assessment is designed to enable you to demonstrate an understanding of quality and
safety in health care through the critical discussion of one of the National Safety and Quality
Health Service Standards.
This assessment will address learning outcome 2.
TASK INSTRUCTIONS:
This task requires you to write a 2,000-word assignment. Before you write your assignment,
you will need to:
• Choose one of the following National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS)
Standards (ACSQHC, 2017) as the topic of your assignment.
• Clinical governance (Standard 1)
• Partnering with consumers (Standard 2)
• Preventing and controlling healthcare-associated infection (Standard 3)
• Comprehensive care (Standard 5)
• Communicating for safety (Standard 6)
• Blood management (Standard 7)
Please note, the following two NSQHS standards are not included as topic choices.
• Medication safety (Standard 4)
• Recognising and responding to acute deterioration (Standard 8)