“How long will it take?” is the first question every practice owner asks about accreditation, and the answer most consultants give — “three to six months” — is not wrong, but it hides the real variable. The build is a fixed amount of work. The calendar is how fast someone can do it.
The hours, from our own builds
We keep hours on every engagement. For a first-time RACGP 5th edition build at a new practice — from nothing to certification — the work falls into eight areas. These are our figures from recent builds; your practice will differ.
| Area of work | Hours (typical) |
|---|---|
| Policy and procedure suite, written for the practice | 50–60 |
| Clinical rooms, equipment register, labelling, signage and physical evidence | 20–25 |
| Cold chain, infection control and sterilisation systems | 15–20 |
| Patient feedback cycle, analysis and actions | 12–15 |
| Registers, logs, checklists and the quality improvement program | 15–20 |
| Staff and doctor training and interview preparation | 15–20 |
| Internal mock survey and correction of gaps | 12–15 |
| Agency liaison, survey day and post-survey actions | 15–20 |
| First-time 5th edition build | 155–195 |
Two things in that table are not compressible. Patient feedback has to be collected from real patients over a real period and then analysed and acted on. Staff training has to happen with the staff who will be interviewed, and they have to retain it. Everything else is a question of hands.
So how long in calendar time?
If the practice manager can give it a day a week alongside their job, 155 to 195 hours is roughly nine months. If we embed and work it in full days alongside the team, it is closer to three, with the patient feedback cycle setting the floor. Failed-assessment recovery is different: the evidence window is short, the documentation usually exists in some form, and we have taken centres that failed most of their indicators back to full accreditation in two to three weeks by working full days on site. That is a rescue, not a build.
The two-week rescues
Whatever the comfortable number of hours says, we have done this three times now with two weeks on the clock. In each case the practice had failed its assessment at around eighty per cent of indicators met, had tried to find help or fix it themselves, and had lost staff in the process — owners left with a deadline, a thin team and no idea where to start. They called us with a fortnight to the re-assessment. Within that fortnight compliance was met at one hundred per cent: new modules in place, staff trained and interviewed, evidence filed. The assessors who attended were the same assessors who had recorded the failure, and in every case they said they could not believe the change in the team, and congratulated everyone on achieving it in so short a period.
It was not magic. It was long workdays, nights and weekends, with a team that decided to do it and someone leading them through it in the right order. That is the honest version of the timeline: with the right leadership and a team that commits, anything is possible in two weeks. Without them, nine months is not enough.
The comfortable number is 155 to 195 hours. The proven floor, when it has to be, is two weeks.
What the 6th edition adds
Our provisional estimate for 6th edition readiness is a further 100 to 165 hours on top of the table above — governance planning, digital records and coding, AI governance, the sustainability program, antibiotic stewardship, structured quality improvement, patient participation, staff immunisation and re-mapping the evidence. We explain each in our 6th edition summary.
The practical advice: don’t ask how long. Ask who is doing the 155 hours, and when. If the answer is “the practice manager, after five”, the honest timeline is a year.
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Quick answers
How long does re-accreditation take?
Much less than a first-time build if the practice has maintained its documentation, training and logs through the cycle. If it has not — and most have not — re-accreditation is closer to a first-time build with the added job of reconciling three years of drift. Under the 6th edition, maintaining through the cycle is the point.
Can accreditation be done in three weeks?
Recovery from a failed assessment can be, because the evidence window is short and we work full days on site. Building a practice from nothing to accredited in three weeks is not something we would promise; the staff training and the quality improvement cycle need real time to exist.
What slows accreditation down most?
A team with no time. The hours in the table have to be done by someone; if the practice manager is also the senior receptionist, the build stalls. The second cause is a generic policy manual that has to be rewritten because it doesn’t match the practice.
Fifteen years in medical practice operations. MBA, Melbourne Business School. Two medical centres built and sold; ten-plus centres overseen today. About Jamal →