Braemar Hospital Achieves Top Level Of Accreditation

Braemar Hospital’s processes and patient care are of such a high standard, that the Kirikiriroa Hamilton hospital has earned a Ngā Paerewa Health and Disability Services Standard Certification valid for four years.

All hospitals and health providers across Aotearoa New Zealand are required to meet Ngā Paerewa, the Ministry of Health’s healthcare and disability service standards.

Previous audit findings determine how often health providers are audited and the better you do, the longer you can be certified, says Braemar Hospital Quality and Risk Manager, Laura Houchen.

“Being awarded certification for four years is a big vote of confidence from the Ministry of Health. This shows that what the audit has found, and what the Ministry agrees, is that our systems and processes we have in place and the standard of care we give are a consistently high standard.”

Laura says most hospitals in New Zealand are certified every three years.

“The audit involves a rating in terms of each criterion they assess, ranging from “non-conforming” to “fully conforming” and “continuous improvement” which is equivalent to an A plus.”

Health providers must be “fully conforming” to be certified to operate.

“We have been awarded several “continuous improvement” ratings in our 2024 audit,” says Laura.

“This accreditation demonstrates we're not just doing what we need to do to keep everyone safe, we are going above and beyond. Ongoing improvements in our medicine management systems and infection prevention programme earned “continuous improvement” ratings.”

The ultimate goal is a five-year Ngā Paerewa certification which Laura says no hospital has reached yet.

“Excellence is our goal. We will keep focusing on doing what we do, keeping up with best practices, maintaining our standards and searching for opportunities to improve. That means continually looking for opportunities to say this is good, but we can make it better.”

Braemar Hospital is widely recognised as one of New Zealand's leading private surgical hospitals. The hospital is 100% owned by Braemar Charitable Trust which works to improve healthcare outcomes by supporting medical research, building health sector capability and delivering a community surgery programme.

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