A spot check is a support contact or review audit conducted by aged care quality assessors on behalf of the Agency with little or no notice. The provider will be given written notice about a spot check of no more than 30 minutes. In some cases this notice may coincide with the arrival of the assessors at the home.
Spot checks are conducted as part of the Agency’s ongoing role in monitoring aged care homes’ compliance with the Accreditation Standards, and may be random or targeted.
Targeted spot checks are conducted where the Agency has reason to believe that there may be non-compliance, whereas random spot checks may be conducted on any home at any time. The conduct of a spot check does not necessarily imply that a home is non-compliant with the Accreditation Standards.
About 10 per cent of the Agency’s non-accreditation visits are conducted as spot checks.
The Agency appreciates that spot checks may not always be convenient to the home and assessment teams will conduct the visits with as little disruption as possible. There are occasions when a spot check may be rescheduled as its conduct may have an impact on the care of residents. However, the Australian community has high expectations of aged care providers, and expects that homes should be able to show that they provide high quality care to residents at any time of the day, any day of the week.
Spot checks follow the same processes as a support visit or review audit, whichever applies in the circumstances. Top
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