NABH Accreditation for Hospitals (6th Edition)

Who should apply under the 6th Edition

The Hospitals (HCO) programme is for public and private hospitals with more than 50 sanctioned beds, whether multi-specialty or single-specialty — cardiac, orthopaedic, maternity, eye, cancer or neuro hospitals all use the same standard, applied to the services they offer. The hospital must comply with applicable laws and commit to implementing the standards across every department.

If you have 50 beds or fewer, the SHCO programme is designed for you. If you want a quicker first step, the entry-level certification is open to hospitals of every size.

The 6th Edition at a glance

NABH released the 6th Edition on 17 September 2024 and it became effective on 1 January 2025. Applications under the 5th Edition closed on 31 December 2024, so every new and renewing hospital now works to the 6th Edition.

NABH's own standards document lists 135 elements for COP, but its category columns add up to 136, which is consistent with the 639 total. Click any chapter code in the table for its element-by-element guide.

The objective elements are graded into four levels: Core (105, checked at every assessment), Commitment (457, the basis of initial accreditation), Achievement (60, checked at surveillance) and Excellence (17, checked at re-accreditation). The 6th Edition also places more emphasis on patient-centred outcomes, technology, staff well-being and sustainability, and adds annexures on medication errors, risk management, patient-reported outcome and experience measures, and clinical audit. Our guide to the 6th Edition changes goes chapter by chapter.

How the final assessment is scored

Each objective element is scored from 1 (no compliance) to 5 (full compliance). For initial accreditation under the 6th Edition:

• every Core element must score at least 4;
• overall compliance on Commitment elements must be at least 80%;
• the average score of every standard and every chapter must be at least 4;
• no standard may have more than one element scored 2 or less;
• any element scored 3 or below needs an accepted action plan with timelines.

At surveillance, Achievement elements must reach 80% compliance; at re-accreditation, Excellence elements must too. Because a single weak Core element can sink an otherwise good hospital, our mock assessments score you on exactly this scale.

The NABH process for hospitals

1. Download the 6th Edition standards and buy the guidebook.
2. Implement the standards internally for at least three months.
3. Submit the online application with documents and pay the application fee.
4. NABH conducts a desktop assessment of your documents.
5. Trained assessors conduct the on-site assessment.
6. You close non-conformities with evidence.
7. The accreditation committee decides; surveillance follows in year 2 and re-application in year 4.

NABH fees for hospitals

Fees as published by NABH, revised with effect from 1 April 2024; 18% GST is extra. Other charges include virtual assessment fees (₹3,000 to ₹15,000 by size), focus assessments (₹15,000) and assessor travel and stay. Confirm the current schedule on nabh.co before applying.

A realistic timeline

For a hospital starting from scratch with a supportive management, we usually plan 6 to 12 months from gap analysis to final assessment:

What assessors look for most closely

• Medication management (MOM): high-alert and look-alike sound-alike medicines, narcotics control, medication charts, reconciliation and error reporting.
• Infection prevention and control (IPC): surveillance data on device-associated infections, hand-hygiene compliance, sterilisation records, antimicrobial stewardship, biomedical waste handling.
• Care of patients (COP): high-risk procedures, sedation and anaesthesia records, blood transfusion, restraints, end-of-life care.
• Human resources (HRM): credentialing and privileging files for every doctor, job descriptions, training records, staff health checks.
• Facility safety (FMS): fire NOC, mock drills, equipment maintenance and calibration, medical gas safety.
• Quality (PSQ): indicators that are measured, analysed and acted upon, with evidence of improvement. The 6th Edition lists 32 hospital-wide and 18 department-specific indicators; see our NABH quality indicators list.

How we help hospitals

We map your hospital against all 639 objective elements, write documentation around how your teams actually work, train staff department by department, set up committees and quality indicators, run a scored mock assessment and support you through the desktop and final assessments. Afterwards we can stay on for surveillance readiness. The detail is on how our NABH consultancy works.

Many hospitals pursue accreditation alongside CGHS, ECHS and PMJAY empanelment — accreditation directly improves the rates you are paid under each.