Health care safety and quality

The safety and quality of care provided in Australia’s health system is of utmost importance to all patients, their families, and carers. A safe and high-quality health system provides the most appropriate and best-value care, while keeping patients safe from preventable harm in the delivery of that care (ACSQHC 2020).

This page provides an overview of some key elements of the health care safety and quality monitoring arrangements in Australia.

Ensuring and improving safety and quality

Australia’s health system is often considered relatively high performing when compared with other countries (The Commonwealth Fund 2024). However, in any health care system there are ongoing challenges and areas for improvement, and the need for monitoring of different aspects of the delivery and outcomes of care. 

Ensuring the safety and quality of health care in Australia is a shared responsibility of several agencies, professional groups and regulatory bodies and is an important focus of government policies and community discussion. Some of the key agencies that play a role at the national level include the:

• Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) which provides leadership to improve the safety and quality of health care at the national level, including through the development of clinical care and quality standards and overseeing model national accreditation schemes for health care services.
• Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency which ensures that Australia’s registered health practitioners are suitably trained, qualified and safe to practise.
• Therapeutic Goods Administration which regulates therapeutic goods for safety, efficacy, performance and quality to help protect and improve the health of Australians. Therapeutic goods include prescription medicines, vaccines, medical devices and blood products.

Other bodies that play a role include:

• state/territory-based regulatory bodies that license, approve and regulate certain types of health service providers, including hospitals and day procedure services that operate in their jurisdiction
• health care complaints commissioners­ – who are available in all states/territories and provide an avenue for raising safety and quality concerns directly from patients, carers and families in relation to both registered and unregistered health practitioners
• coroners and coronial processes also inform the safety and quality of the health system by independently investigating health care related deaths and making recommendations to minimise systemic and preventable risks
• specialist teams in states and territories and in individual health services that work to monitor and improve the safety and quality of the care being provided across the system or in their organisation
• various agencies involved in accrediting health services, and
• the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority, that promotes efficiency and increases transparency in the delivery and funding of public health and aged care services across Australia.

Clinical quality registries

Clinical quality registries also strengthen the quality and safety of Australia’s health care system. A clinical quality registry is a structured system that collects and analyses data on specific diseases, procedures, or patient groups to monitor outcomes and drive improvements in the safety and quality of health care (ACSQHC 2024, DHDA 2026). These registries provide feedback to clinicians and health services, helping identify variations in care and supporting evidence‑based quality improvements that enhance patient outcomes.

These registries span a wide range of clinical topics. Examples include the National Cardiac Registry, Australian Orthopaedic Association National Joint Replacement Registry, The Australian Cystic Fibrosis Data Registry, and the Australia New Zealand Trauma Registry (ACSQHC 2026a).

Performance and safety reporting

It is a key role of the AIHW to report a wide range of information on the many different dimensions of the performance of Australia’s health system. Monitoring the performance of the health system in this way helps inform governments, service providers and the public about how effective, efficient and appropriate the system is and whether it is achieving good outcomes for patients and the wider community.

Information, data and resources made available by the AIHW includes:

• Australia’s health – AIHW’s biennial report on the health of Australians
• the Hospitals data sub-site, which includes detailed information on the characteristics and performance of the hospital system at the national, state and local levels
• the Mental Health data sub-site, which describes the activity and characteristics of Australia’s health and social care services accessed by people with a mental illness
• the primary health care reporting program, which includes information on primary care in Australia, including the Practice Incentives Program Quality Improvement Measures
• reporting on indicators in the Australia's Health Performance Framework (AHPF). Note that the AHPF is being reviewed and will be replaced by a new Health System Performance Assessment Framework which will strengthen the link between data and policy action. It will emphasise the effective use of health data alongside interpretation to explain implications, and governance to support policy action.

Some specific measures of hospital safety reported on the Hospitals safety and quality pages include:

• healthcare-associated Staphylococcus aureus (‘golden staph’) bloodstream infections
• hand hygiene compliance
• hospital-acquired complications.

Measures of mental health safety and quality reported on the Mental health pages include: 

• clinician-rated consumer outcomes [completed inpatient, completed ambulatory (outpatient), and ongoing ambulatory (outpatient)]
• seclusion
• mechanical restraint
• physical restraint.

Data are also available on potentially preventable hospitalisations which can be used as a measure of the accessibility and effectiveness of primary and community health care services.

In addition to AIHW’s reporting on safety and quality, the ACSQHC also has a Safety in Health Care web tool which allows people to look up safety and quality data about their local hospital and learn about how safety and quality is assessed and promoted in the Australian health system.

Patient-reported measures 

Other important measures of the performance of the health system come from the patients themselves in the form of feedback on their outcomes and experiences with a range of health care providers. It has been an expectation for many years, for example, that under health service accreditation standards set by the ACSQHC that health services routinely survey patients to obtain their patient’s perspectives on the care provided and their experiences as a patient.

Patient-reported experiences

The Australian Bureau of Statistics also conducts an annual Patient Experience Survey covering various aspects of the health system, including hospitals and dental professionals.

In 2024–25, most people reported positive experiences of health care provided by their health care practitioners (ABS 2025). For example:

• A high proportion of people who saw a general practitioner (GP) felt that their GPs always listened carefully to them (74%), 82% felt their GPs always showed respect, and 74% felt their GPs always spent enough time with them.
• In relation to medical specialists, 79% of people felt that their specialists always listened carefully to them, 83% felt their specialists always showed respect, and 79% felt their specialists always spent enough time with them.

Recent Patient Experience Surveys have also included questions about patients’ experiences using telehealth services. For those who had a telehealth consultation with a health care practitioner for their own health in the last 12 months (23% of people aged 15 and over), 80% reported that their telehealth practitioners always listened carefully, 83% reported that their telehealth practitioners always showed respect, and 78% reported that their telehealth practitioners always spent enough time with them.

The AIHW also reports on patient experiences with specialised public mental health services, through the Your Experience of Service (YES) survey. For information on this survey and other information about patient experiences with mental health services, see Mental health services in Australia.

Patient experience is also collected by health services and/or state or territory health departments. A variety of validated tools, including the ACSQHC’s Australian Hospital Patient Experience Questionnaire Set, are used to collect patient experience data. The insights from the data collected are often used to inform local quality improvement initiatives.

Patient-reported outcome measures

Patients can also contribute directly to the effectiveness (and hence, the overall quality) of health services by participating in activities that collect patient-reported outcome data related to their care. These measures are used to obtain information from patients on their health status, using standardised and validated questionnaires, reflecting the things that are important to them.

When used before and after (or throughout) a course of health care, information on the self-reported changes in health status are considered to be measures of health outcomes. Typically, the surveys used would measure aspects such as overall health status, severity of symptoms such as pain, measures of daily functioning and psychological symptoms.

Patient-reported outcome measures have long been used as part of clinical quality registries and research activities to evaluate health interventions. But they are increasingly being used and promoted in real-world health care settings as part of the routine delivery of care. For example:

• Through the Australian Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration program, palliative care providers can use standardised validated clinical assessment tools to periodically measure and benchmark patient outcomes and information about the care setting. This information can be used by clinicians to improve their own clinical practices and inform clinical practices more generally. For more information, see Palliative care outcomes.
• The National Outcomes and Casemix Collection is a nationally agreed data collection for the routine collection and reporting of changes in clinical outcomes for people receiving care from Australian public specialised mental health services. The standardised clinical measures used are completed by the clinician or the consumer. For more information, see Consumer outcomes in mental health care.
• The ACSQHC has published a list of validated patient-reported outcome measures on its website to assist clinicians and health services. The list features both generic and condition-specific validated patient-reported outcome measures identified from peer-reviewed literature.

Patient-Reported Indicator Survey (PaRIS)

Patient-reported experience measures and patient-reported outcome measures can be used together to get a broader understanding of the quality of the health system. An example is the OECD Patient-Reported Indicator Surveys (PaRIS).

The OECD Patient-Reported Indicator Surveys (PaRIS) are an international initiative focused on collecting information directly from patients about their outcomes and experiences with health care. These surveys aim to provide valuable insights into how health systems perform from the perspective of those receiving care, allowing for meaningful comparisons across countries and supporting improvements in the quality of health services.

The flagship results from the first international survey (released in 2025) were for primary care patients aged 45 years and older with chronic conditions. Australia performed better than or close to the OECD average across all 10 areas that were measured (five of which were ‘experience measures’ and the remaining five ‘outcome measures’). Australia was also a top 5 performing country (out of 19 participating countries) in four areas – quality of care, coordination of care, person-centred care and physical health. For more information, see PaRIS Survey - Australian National Report 2025.

Where do I go for more information?

For more information on safety and quality of health care, see:

• Hospitals
• International comparisons
• Patient experiences in Australia by small geographic areas in 2019–20
• Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care
• Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority
• Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Patient experiences
• National Primary Health Care Data Collection
• National Palliative Care Strategy

For more information on this topic, see Health care quality and performance.