What evidence shows you partner with consumers under the NSQHS Standards?

Evidence that patients know their rights, give informed consent, share decisions about their care, and receive information they can understand in a form that suits them, and that consumers help shape the service. That is the Partnering with Consumers Standard, 14 actions across 4 criteria.

What the Partnering with Consumers Standard covers

Together with the Clinical Governance Standard, Partnering with Consumers sets the overarching requirements for every other standard. Its aim is a service where patients are partners in their own care, to the extent they choose, and consumers are partners in planning, design, delivery, measurement and evaluation.¹

The Clinical Governance Standard asks for the same voice from another side. Regular feedback from patients about their experience and outcomes, a complaints system that resolves complaints in a timely way, and care planned around the diversity of your consumers and the groups at higher risk of harm.²

Communicating in the patient's language

Action 2.08 asks for communication tailored to the diversity of the people who use the service.¹ A conversation held in the patient's language and kept on the record shows the action in practice, alongside your interpreter policy.

1. Show the charter. Put your charter of rights where patients find it, at booking, in the waiting room and in the patient app.
2. Record consent as a conversation. Write the risks, options, costs and questions into the note alongside the signature.
3. Capture goals in the patient's words. Record what the patient wants from their care, in the note, and refer to it in the plan.
4. Speak their language. Know which languages your patients use, and show conversations held in them.
5. Close the feedback loop. For every theme in feedback or complaints, record what changed and tell patients you changed it.
6. Bring consumers in. Invite consumers who reflect your community to review information you write and services you design.

1. What patients told us ______ Source ______ Date ______
2. Languages or groups it came from ______
3. Consumers involved in the response ______
4. What we changed ______
5. How we told patients ______
6. Measured effect ______

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The guide to clinic AI in Melbourne and the guide to clinic AI in Sydney cover multilingual care in those cities. The guide to clinical handover documentation covers Action 6.10, and the NSQHS and RACGP accreditation hub maps all 8 standards.

Questions

How many actions are in the Partnering with Consumers Standard?

14 actions, in 4 criteria.

Does the standard require interpreters?

It requires communication tailored to the diversity of the people who use the service. How you meet that, through interpreters, translated information or conversations in the patient's language, is for your service to show.

What counts as consumer involvement in governance?

Consumers involved in planning, design, measurement and evaluation, chosen to reflect the diversity of the people who use the service or the local community.

Sources

1. 1Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2026Partnering with Consumers StandardRead source
2. 2Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2026Clinical Governance StandardRead source

Written by the wai team from Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care and the RACGP guidance, checked on 15 October 2026. This is guidance, not legal advice. Neither ACSQHC nor the RACGP endorses wai or any software.