Compliance &
Accreditation

The Aged Care Quality Standards, enforced by the ACQSC, govern all aspects of care quality in residential aged care. Standard 3 (Personal Care and Clinical Care) covers infection prevention and control, including environmental cleaning. Standard 8 (Organisational Governance) requires that governance systems — including the infection control programme — are documented, auditable, and subject to continuous improvement. ACQSC assessments may occur announced or unannounced; the documentation trail must be current and accessible at any time.

ACQSC requires: TGA-registered hospital-grade disinfectants; a two-step clean-then-disinfect protocol for all resident areas; WWVP-cleared staff for all personnel entering the facility; a documented cleaning frequency schedule; per-visit completion records; a TGA product register; periodic deep clean events with documentation; and a mandatory three-phase outbreak response cleaning protocol whenever an infectious outbreak occurs — including pathogen-matched chemistry, enhanced frequency, and a post-outbreak clearance clean before returning to routine programme.

All staff attending aged care facilities hold current WWVP clearances. We use TGA-registered hospital-grade disinfectants throughout, with a two-step protocol for all resident rooms and common areas. Our Accreditation Ready programme produces the full ACQSC documentation package. The outbreak response arrangement — pre-agreed per-pathogen protocols with pathogen-matched TGA virucidal or sporicidal chemistry — activates immediately on notification of a suspected event, without requiring a new scope or price negotiation during an active outbreak.

AS/NZS 4815 is the Australian Standard for the reprocessing of reusable medical devices in office-based healthcare facilities — principally covering instrument sterilisation in GP, dental, and specialist practices. While its primary focus is the sterilisation workflow rather than environmental cleaning, it has direct relevance to the cleaning of sterilisation areas: the benchtop, sink, autoclave exterior, instrument storage areas, and packaging zones must be cleaned and maintained to a standard that does not compromise instrument reprocessing integrity.

The standard requires that the sterilisation area is maintained free from contamination that could compromise the reprocessing cycle. This means: the sterilisation benchtop is cleaned and disinfected as a distinct zone separate from the general practice clean; products used in the sterilisation zone must be compatible with the materials used in instrument packaging and storage; and the cleaning sequence must avoid re-contaminating processed or packaged instruments. For dental practices, the standard intersects with amalgam-safe product requirements for surfaces that contact dental amalgam waste.

We treat the sterilisation bay as a separate zone in all dental and GP practice cleaning programmes — using appropriate TGA-registered chemistry compatible with the sterilisation workflow, and following a cleaning sequence that ensures the zone is clean before packaged instruments are placed in it. For dental practices, we confirm amalgam-safe product selection before attending any practice with amalgam restorations. Staff attending practices with sterilisation areas are specifically briefed on the zone requirements before their first visit.

AS 4187 is the hospital-grade equivalent of AS/NZS 4815 — governing the reprocessing of reusable medical devices in health service organisations including hospitals and day procedure centres. It covers the physical and chemical requirements for all stages of instrument reprocessing, including the environmental conditions of the CSSD (Central Sterilising Services Department) or instrument processing area. In a hospital setting, the CSSD is a zone with specific environmental cleanliness requirements that affect how the room itself must be cleaned and maintained.

The CSSD or instrument processing area must be maintained at a level of environmental cleanliness consistent with the sterility requirements of the instruments processed within it. This includes: surfaces cleaned and disinfected before each processing session; the room maintained under positive pressure or controlled airflow conditions; cleaning products compatible with instrument packaging materials and autoclave consumables; and the area cleaned in a way that does not introduce particulate contamination into the clean instrument zone. Cleaning records for the CSSD must be maintained separately from the general ward or surgery clean records.

In hospital cleaning programmes, we include the CSSD or instrument processing area as a separately documented zone — with its own frequency schedule, product record, and completion record — distinct from the general ward clean documentation. Products used in the CSSD are selected for compatibility with the sterile processing workflow and confirmed as appropriate for use in the zone before the programme commences. CSSD cleaning is included in our Recommended and Accreditation Ready programme tiers for hospital and day procedure centre clients.

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Standards for General Practices set the quality benchmark for GP accreditation in Australia. The infection prevention and control criterion (C1.1 in the 5th Edition) requires accredited general practices to have a documented infection control programme that covers environmental cleaning — including frequency, products, and staff competency. RACGP accreditation is required for practices that wish to train registrars, and is the quality standard referenced by most practice insurance and indemnity providers.

RACGP standards require: a written cleaning protocol for all clinical and non-clinical areas; use of TGA-listed hospital-grade disinfectants in clinical areas; staff trained and able to demonstrate competency in the cleaning protocol; documentation of the cleaning programme as part of the infection control policy; and periodic review of the cleaning programme as part of the practice's continuous quality improvement process. The assessor will review the infection control policy and may ask staff to describe the cleaning protocol during the accreditation visit.

Our Accreditation Ready programme provides a cleaning policy and procedure document structured for direct inclusion in a practice's infection control policy — meeting the RACGP requirement for a documented cleaning protocol. The TGA product register and frequency schedule can be appended directly to the infection control policy as supporting annexures. We can brief the practice manager on the content of the cleaning protocol so that practice staff can describe it accurately to an RACGP assessor. Practices approaching RACGP accreditation should engage us at least three months before their assessment date to ensure a complete documentation trail is in place.

The Australian Dental Association Guidelines for Infection Control are the reference standard for infection prevention in Australian dental practices, aligned with the Dental Board of Australia's requirements under AHPRA. The guidelines cover environmental cleaning in dental surgeries specifically — addressing the contamination risks associated with aerosol-generating procedures (AGPs), the surfaces that must be disinfected between patient sessions and at end of day, and the requirements for the sterilisation bay. AHPRA may review infection control practices as part of a dental practitioner peer review or complaint investigation.

ADA Guidelines require: identification of the spatter zone (approximately one metre around the dental chair) as a high-contamination zone requiring full two-step TGA disinfection after every AGP session; specific product requirements for the sterilisation bay; amalgam-aware product selection for surfaces contacting dental amalgam waste; and a written environmental cleaning protocol included in the practice's infection control manual. Between-session and end-of-day cleaning protocols are described differently — the end-of-day clean covers the full surgery including surfaces outside the immediate spatter zone.

All staff attending dental practices are briefed on ADA infection control guidelines before their first visit — including spatter zone identification, between-session vs end-of-day scope differences, sterilisation bay cleaning sequence, and amalgam-safe product selection. We confirm amalgam-safe product compatibility before commencing any dental practice programme and document it in the facility's product register. Our dental cleaning protocol is structured to match the ADA guideline requirements and can be provided as a written protocol document for inclusion in the practice's infection control manual.

WorkSafe Victoria enforces the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic) and its regulations, which impose a duty of care on employers (including cleaning companies) and on facility operators (as PCBUs — Persons Conducting a Business or Undertaking) for the health and safety of all workers in the workplace, including contractors. In a healthcare cleaning context, the OHS obligations cover: chemical handling, PPE requirements, manual handling, lone worker safety for after-hours access, needle-stick and sharps injury prevention, and biological hazard exposure management.

WorkSafe requirements relevant to healthcare cleaning include: Safety Data Sheets (SDS) available for all chemicals used on-site; PPE appropriate to the task and chemical in use; manual handling risk management for heavy equipment; a safe work procedure (SWP) for lone workers accessing facilities outside business hours; a needlestick injury procedure and access to a sharps disposal system; biological hazard exposure procedures for staff who encounter blood or body fluid contamination; and a documented incident reporting process. The facility operator (PCBU) shares these OHS obligations for contractor workers.

We maintain current SDS for every product used on-site, accessible to our staff and to the facility at any time. PPE is selected and supplied by us appropriate to each task and product — N95 respirators for high-risk isolation cleans, chemical-resistant gloves for biohazard clean-up, and appropriate eye protection for chemical handling. Our after-hours lone worker procedure includes scheduled check-in protocols and facility access records. Staff are trained in needlestick prevention, sharps avoidance, and the response to accidental biological hazard exposure. Incident records are maintained and available for WorkSafe inspection.