Presenter: Jen Engels
Presented on 12 October 2022
Welcome everyone. My name is Jen Engels and I will be taking you through Module 3 in our Residential Aged Care NDIS registration video series. Module 3 is all about selecting an Approved Quality Auditing body.
In Module 2 in the previous video we actually took you through the process of your online registration renewal. Once you have completed that process you will get something that’s called an ‘Initial Scope of Audit’ document from the NDIS Commission. This document is really important because it summarises your compliance requirements and audit pathway.
For Residential aged care providers supporting NDIS participants your audit pathway is going to be the Certification audit pathway and as a minimum you will be audited or assessed against the Core Module of the NDIS Practice Standards. If there is other compliance requirements that you will need to meet they will be spelled out on the initial scope of audit document. The initial scope of audit is also used to obtain quotes from NDIS Approved Quality Auditing bodies.
So, it’s important to know in the NDIS you get to choose your auditing body, you can find a list of bodies on the NDIS Commission’s website, so if you follow the file path on the screen and we have a few tips for you for getting the right fit for your organisation and that’s really important.
So when you’re getting a quote provide your scope of audit because that will be a really clear way to present your scope to the potential audit bodies, getting multiple quotes is always a good idea and feel free ask questions because it is important to get the right fit for your organisation as well as best value. So, you might ask what experience the audit body has with NDIS participants who have cognitive or complex needs, you may ask if the audit body is accredited to undertake aged care audits, you may ask other questions that are pertinent to your organisation. It is also worthwhile asking about when the audit body has capacity to undertake your audit, just to make sure that they have capacity to fit in with your timeline.
After you have selected your audit body the Approved Quality Auditing body will go into the NDIS Commission system and this is the one you use to undertake your registration renewal. So they will go in there and they will update the auditor relationship under your application in that system and what this does is it shows that you are linked with an audit body so the NDIS Commission can see that.
They will also recheck the scope of your audit and begin audit planning. It is important that they double check scope because things can change. Depending on the timing of your most recent Aged Care audit, the audit body may also request approval from the NDIS Commission to undertake a Modified RAC audit. Obviously though this is on a case-by-case basis.
So, a few steps for you as well, your audit body will be in touch to get the ball rolling for planning for Stage 1. Stage 1 is a desktop audit and it’s normally undertaken offsite. It’s a good idea to share information about the audit with your colleagues, governing body, management team and importantly NDIS participants. It’s also important at this stage that you check that staff have the right training or appropriate training as applicable to the NDIS practice standards.
And I mentioned that the audit body would be in touch about planning and in Module 4 of this video series we will take you through what actually happens at a desktop audit. If you need any more detail then all of the information that you will need to know is in Part D of the Residential aged care toolkit.
We hope this video has been valuable.