How to prepare for your first ACQSC audit under the strengthened Quality Standards

Work out which audit you're having, then get your evidence ready before the Commission asks for it. The audit starts with an email asking you to complete the Audit Evidence Collection Tool (AECT) and send supporting documents by a deadline, so your policies, registers and records need to be current and easy to find before that email arrives. After that, prepare your governing body and senior managers for their meetings, and if you're renewing, prepare each site for an onsite or sampled audit.

Below is the plan, step by step.

Which audit will we have?

1. Confirm the audit type

The Commission audits against the strengthened Quality Standards when a provider applies in categories 4, 5 or 6 to register for the first time, to renew its registration, or to vary its registration to add one of those categories (Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards). If you're already registered, your audit comes with your renewal or a variation.

The type matters because the work is different. For registration and variation audits, the Commission meets your governing body and senior management, and only visits a site if it needs to see where you'll deliver services. For renewal audits, it also audits every Category 6 residential care home and a sample of your category 4 and 5 service locations (Commission, Audit process).

The strengthened Quality Standards applied from 1 November 2025 and have 7 standards (Commission). If your documents are still organised against the previous 8 standards, remap them now.

When does the renewal audit start?

2. Watch for the invitation to renew

The Commission sends an invitation to renew before your registration expires. It sets out the renewal timeframes, when you need to apply by and whether there's an audit. It can arrive up to 18 months before your current registration expires, depending on your size, categories and audit requirements (Commission, Renew a registration).

Once you confirm you plan to renew in categories 4, 5 or 6, you pay the audit fee (if it applies) and the Commission arranges the audit. If you don't apply before the date in the invitation, your registration expires and you can't deliver funded aged care services (Commission).

Put the invitation's dates in the calendar the day it arrives. Work back from them.

What evidence will the Commission ask for?

3. Get the evidence collection tools early

Download the tools that apply to you from the Commission's audit guidance and resources page and read them before the audit starts:

• the AECT, which is different for registration, renewal and variation
• the Care Delivery Evidence Collection Tool (CDECT), which renewing providers must also complete
• the registration, renewal or variation audit guide, and the pre-audit readiness checklist

The AECT has a section for each strengthened Quality Standard that applies to your categories (Commission, Renewal of registration audit guide). The CDECT collects evidence such as rosters, incident reports, infection reports and complaints for each residential care home and each sampled home or community service (Commission).

Deadlines are firm. If you don't complete and submit the AECT by the deadline, the Commission can withdraw your application (Commission, Audit process). Extensions need the Commission's approval (Commission).

4. Know how evidence is judged

Auditors collect from 8 evidence categories: experience of older people, governing body feedback, management feedback, worker feedback, third-party feedback, observations, documents and records, and care outcomes. They check each piece is relevant, current, credible and valid, meaning it's consistent with other sources (Commission, Renewal of registration audit guide).

The Commission gathers information about your governance, systems and processes, then tests whether these have been embedded and consistently applied in how you deliver services (Commission, Audit overview). Expect what's written in a policy to be checked against what staff say, what auditors observe and what your records show.

Are our policies and procedures ready?

5. Bring policies and registers up to date

Outcome 2.3, Action 2.3.7 says the provider "maintains and implements policies and procedures that are current, regularly reviewed, informed by contemporary, evidence-based practice, and are understood and accessible by aged care workers and relevant parties" (Commission, Outcome 2.3). The Commission's checklist asks you to "ensure policies, procedures and registers are current and accessible" before the governing body and senior management meetings (Commission, Pre-audit readiness checklist).

For each policy, check:

• its review date hasn't passed
• it's mapped to the strengthened outcomes it supports
• the staff who need it can find it, and you can show they've read it

The initiation email also asks you to send updated policies and procedures as they become available (Commission, Audit process), so keep a list of what's changed and when.

Who needs to be ready for the audit meetings?

6. Prepare the governing body and senior managers

In a renewal audit, the Commission meets 1 to 3 members of your governing body and 2 to 5 members of your senior management, online, for about 90 to 120 minutes each (Commission, Renewal of registration audit guide). The audit looks at your governance, your systems and processes for delivering care, and the experience and outcomes of older people in your care (Commission, Audit overview).

Pick the attendees early and walk them through the Commission's standard meeting agendas, which set out the purpose, topics, attendees and timing of each meeting (Commission, Audit guidance and resources). The checklist asks you to make sure participants understand their roles and responsibilities (Commission, Pre-audit readiness checklist).

What happens at our sites?

7. Prepare each site (renewal audits)

Care delivery and residential care home audits include interviews with older people and their representatives, interviews with staff, observations and file reviews (Commission, Audit process). If auditors ask for a document while they're onsite, the Commission expects it within an hour (Commission, Renewal of registration audit guide).

Before the visit:

1. tell older people and their supporters about the audit, and that they may be invited to give feedback (Commission, Pre-audit readiness checklist)
2. make sure site managers can pull rosters, incident records, training records and acknowledgements quickly
3. brief staff on what auditors may ask, including where to find the policies they work to

How will we be rated, and what happens after?

8. Plan for the preliminary report

The Commission rates each outcome as conformance, minor non-conformance or major non-conformance, and the standard's rating is based on its outcome ratings. Exceeding applies only to Category 6 providers in renewal audits (Commission, Graded assessment and audit ratings).

You can't add evidence at the closing meeting. You can when you respond to the preliminary report (Commission, Renewal of registration audit guide), by the deadline and through the secure link the Commission provides (Commission, Audit process). Have someone ready to gather that evidence in the days after the audit.

OriComply manages policies, staff acknowledgements and audit evidence in one place (oricomply.ai).