Licensing criteria for hospital-based ECE services

Section 10 of the Education and Training Act 2020(external link) defines hospital-based education and care service as the provision of education or care to 3 or more children under the age of 6 who are receiving hospital care.

ECE services operating from hospital premises that provide education and care to siblings of patients or children of hospital staff or patients are centre-based ECE services, not hospital-based ECE services.

Hospital-based services are licensed in accordance with the Education and Training Act 2020 under the Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008(external link), which prescribe minimum standards that each licensed service must meet. Licensing criteria are used to assess how the services meet the minimum standards required by the regulations.

For each criterion there is guidance to help services meet the required standards.

The publication of the criteria on its own can be downloaded as a PDF [PDF, 1.2 MB] and printed.

The licensing criteria were last updated in September 2022.

GMA10 Enrolment records

  • Criteria
    • Criteria

      Governance, management and administration criterion 10

      Adults providing education and care have access to information held by the hospital for each child participating in the service that includes:

      • the child's full name, date of birth, and address;
      • the name and address of at least 1 parent;
      • details of how at least 1 parent (or someone nominated by them)
      • can be contacted while the child is participating in the service;
      • the name of the medical practitioner with overall responsibility for the child's care;
      • details of any chronic illness/condition that the child has, and of any
      • implications or actions to be followed in relation to that illness/condition;
      • and any court orders affecting day to day care of, or contact with, the child.
      Rationale/Intent:

      The maintenance of records provides evidence of the accountability of service providers to the community and government for Crown funding. Participation records are also an indicator of good management and administration practices necessary to ensure the safety of the children attending.

  • Guidance
    • Guidance

      Any examples in the guidance are provided as a starting point to show how services can meet (or exceed) the requirement. Services may choose to use other approaches better suited to their needs as long as they comply with the criteria.

      Educators will need to ensure they have a system in place to access relevant information held by the hospital for children participating in the service. This information will be on the child’s clinical notes.

      Services should be familiar with the obligations of the Privacy Act and understand the twelve information privacy principles dealing with collecting, holding, use and disclosure of personal information. Information on this can be found at the Privacy Commissioner website(external link).

      See section 3-B-3 of the Funding Handbook.