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Levels of health care

Tertiary/Hospital

• Mainly acute public sector hospitals with interdisciplinary High-Risk Foot Service (iHRFS) teams that can assist with acute and/or deteriorating foot disease.
• The setting can be inpatient or outpatient dependent on what is needed for patient care.
• Access usually via general practitioner (GP) or podiatrist’s referral for outpatient appointments – it is best to contact the individual service for referral details
• Most public hospitals provide inpatient and outpatient care to patients at no cost to the individual. There may be some out of pockets expensive for consumables however this will be dependent on the hospital and service.

Community Health

• Community Health services are teams that can manage foot care from foot protection to acute high-risk foot issues.
• Services may not require a GP referral to access care. Contact the individual service for more information.
• Some community health services may have a cost associated to attend appointments. Contact the individual service for more information.

Private Practice Podiatry

• Podiatry private practices are designed to assist patients with foot care and foot protection by managing requirements on a regular basis. They are key to establishing a lifelong relationship with patients on their foot journey and can assist with your foot health risk and escalation of care when needed.
• Private practice doesn’t require a referral to attend however you can obtain a referral from your GP as part of a Chronic Disease Management Plan. This can then be used to claim a Medicare rebate up to five visits to allied health for the calendar year.

Standards and Accreditation

The mission of the NADC Foot Network is to reduce morbidity and mortality caused by diabetes-related foot disease in people in Australia. One of the first steps in this process was to establish National Standards of care for interdisciplinary High Risk Foot Services (iHRFS), providing standards for these services and the health professionals working within them. Few countries globally have developed national standards for diabetes iHRFS, and it is anticipated that the standards and accreditation process will help to realise and maintain a high level of diabetes iHRFS care throughout our nation, aiding equity of access, and underpinning more consistent across-service outcomes in diabetes foot care.

The NADC Collaborative Interdisciplinary Diabetes High Risk Foot Service Standards and Accreditation program was launched in 2018 and received formal input from key national diabetes footcare organisations, through the NADC Foot Network. The NADC iHRFS accreditation program supports the National Standards and has a multi-pronged approach combining quality improvement, governance, educational and clinical criteria and is the only accreditation of its kind to offer comprehensive, accreditation aimed at the improvement of quality and safety in iHRFS’s.

Currently the NADC supports the accreditation of public/tertiary centres iHRFS. The next phase of the accreditation of development is to review and adapt the standards to commence an accreditation system for community health services including rural and regional services.

The accreditation system ensures that services have a set of standards to be guided by in providing evidence based, patient focused care for people with high risk foot conditions.

The Accreditation has two levels

• Core Accreditation
• Centre of Excellence

Both accreditation awards require independent review from multiple expert assessors and identify services that are meeting the highest standards of iHRFS care. NADC iHRFS Centres of Excellence have met an additional set of criteria and deemed national leaders in foot care.