Accreditation Standards Review - Sept 2025 update

Since our last newsletter, we’ve continued to progress the joint review of the Australian Dental Council (ADC)/Dental Council (New Zealand) (DC(NZ)) Accreditation Standards (‘the Standards’).

The Review’s steering committee met on 28 March 2025 and endorsed distribution of a stakeholder survey to assess the effectiveness of the current Accreditation Standards and seek feedback on potential focus areas for the Review. The purpose of the survey was to determine the scope of the Review and inform the project team’s next steps.

The survey was open for four weeks between May and June 2025 and a targeted group of the ADC and DC(NZ)’s stakeholders were invited to provide feedback.

We received 103 responses to the survey, with respondents from a variety of invited stakeholder groups.

Survey responses provided detailed feedback on the current standards, suggestions for revisions and improvements, and commentary on the suggested focus areas for the review.  The results of the survey confirmed the Standards are largely working as expected. There was also broad support for the proposed focus areas to be considered as part of any revisions to the Standards.

Based on these results, the project team will consider the concerns or challenges raised in detail to determine whether existing criteria for each standard should be refined. The team will engage subject matter experts as required to support the Review.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the survey. We will continue to seek feedback from our key stakeholders in the coming months during the broader consultation phases.