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Ahpra works in partnership with 15 National Boards to ensure the community has access to a safe health workforce across all professions registered under the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme. Public safety is always our number one priority. Every decision we make is guided by the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (the National Law), as in force in each state and territory.
This infographic shows the objectives of the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (the National Scheme) and actions that support them.
What we do
Ahpra has five core regulatory functions:
We provide policy advice to the National Boards about registration standards, codes and guidelines for health practitioners.
In partnership with the National Boards, we ensure that only health practitioners with the skills and qualifications to provide competent and ethical care are registered to practise. We also manage registration and renewal processes for local and overseas qualified health practitioners and manage student registration.
We manage complaints and concerns raised about the health, performance and conduct of individual health practitioners on behalf of the National Boards, except in New South Wales and in Queensland we only manage those notifications referred to us. We work with health complaints entities (HCEs) to make sure the appropriate organisation deals with the community’s concerns about health practitioners.
We monitor and audit registered health practitioners to make sure they are complying with Board requirements.
We work with accreditation authorities and committees to ensure graduating students are suitably qualified and skilled to apply to register as a health practitioner.
We publish a national Register of practitioners so that important information about individual health practitioners is available to the public.
Each National Board has entered into a health profession agreement with Ahpra which sets out the fees payable by health practitioners, the annual budget of the Board and the services provided by Ahpra.
See Who we are for more information about Ahpra.
The regulatory principles underpin the work of the National Boards and Ahpra in regulating Australia’s health practitioners in the public interest.
See also the annual report for more information about our work.