Wounds Australia is leading calls to protect patients from preventable harm, warning that proposed changes to Australia's national hospital safety standards could put vulnerable people at greater risk of pressure injuries.

In a formal submission to the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care recently, Wounds Australia expressed serious concern about the omission of pressure injury prevention from the draft third edition of the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards.

Pressure injuries can cause severe pain, infection, prolonged hospitalisation and loss of independence. They disproportionately affect older Australians, people with disability and those with limited mobility.

Despite being largely preventable, pressure injuries remain a significant burden on patients, their carers and the health system. Australian research has estimated their annual cost to public hospitals at $9.11 billion, including $5.5 billion attributable to hospital-acquired pressure injuries.

A step backwards for patient safety

Pressure injury prevention has been a national patient safety priority since the NSQHS Standards were introduced in 2011.

The current second edition explicitly requires hospitals to implement evidence-based prevention and wound management systems, undertake comprehensive skin inspections and provide appropriate equipment and patient education.

However, these requirements have disappeared from the proposed third edition, replaced by broader references to patient safety and risk management.

Wounds Australia CEO Jeff Antcliff has warned that removing these explicit obligations risks weakening hospital accountability for preventing avoidable harm.

Calling for stronger safeguards

Wounds Australia's submission calls for three key changes:

• Explicit prevention requirements – including risk assessments, skin inspections, appropriate equipment and evidence-based care.
• Recognition of interconnected risks – including falls, delirium, malnutrition and incontinence-associated skin damage.
• Stronger accountability – including standardised monitoring, benchmarking and regular reporting of pressure injury rates to hospital boards.

Wounds Australia has also offered the Commission access to its members' extensive clinical and research expertise to help strengthen the revised Standards.

The third edition is scheduled for piloting in 2027, with final publication expected in 2028.

Representing the sector

As Australia's national peak body for wound prevention and management, Wounds Australia engaged with industry and people of lived experience around this submission. We will continue advocating for standards that protect people at risk, support the clinicians and carers who look after them, and ensure pressure injury prevention remains a national patient safety priority.

Thank you to Professor Michelle Barakat-Johnson for advising on and creating the submission and to Professor Sharon Latimer for supporting advocacy design to Parliamentarians.