Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency - Consultations
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Consultations

What are consultations?

Ahpra and the National Boards carry out wide-ranging consultation on proposals that affect the professions.

From time to time, they release consultation papers, asking stakeholders to provide input that will help shape registration standards, codes and guidelines, and policies.

Where there are consultations which have closed, they will be shown under Past Consultations, along with the submissions that were received.

For information about our consultation process, visit the Procedures page


Public consultation – Review of the Criminal history registration standard and other work to improve public safety

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) and the National Boards are inviting stakeholders to have their say as part of our review of the Criminal history registration standard (the criminal history standard).

We are reviewing the criminal history standard to make sure it is up to date and is still relevant today. This work is part of our blueprint for reform to strengthen public safety in health regulation, which has a focus on sexual misconduct in healthcare.

The criminal history standard sets out what decision-makers consider when a registered health practitioner or someone who wants to be a registered health practitioner has a criminal history. It helps to make sure that only people who are suitable become or stay registered health practitioners.

Feedback to be received in phase one will inform proposed changes to the criminal history standard, a set of principles about how we work with people affected by professional misconduct by registered health practitioners and any other related guidance we develop.

We are inviting responses to questions about how the standard is applied, as well as general comments, from registered health practitioners, employers, professional associations, the public and other stakeholders.

Feedback is sought on the current version of the criminal history standard, as well as comments on the future direction for other focus areas of our work to improve public safety in health regulation, including:

  • our plan to better explain and publish more information about how we make decisions about criminal history and about professional misconduct by registered health practitioners
  • whether we can publish information about practitioners who are registered again after being removed from practice because of serious professional misconduct, and
  • more support for people who are affected by professional misconduct by registered health practitioners.

This consultation will help inform our approach and ensure we have heard a range of views before a revised criminal history standard is developed and another opportunity is provided for stakeholders to comment (phase two).

Released: 3 August 2023
Closes: COB 29 September 2023 (consultation period has been extended)

Resources

We have developed a Guide to the review that outlines the key aspects of the consultation. It explains our role, what the review is about and the purpose of this consultation.

  • Guide to the review PDF (152 KB), Word doc (125 KB, DOCX)   

Making a submission

You can provide feedback using our online form. Or you can use the submissions template to send us your feedback by emailing us at AhpraConsultation@ahpra.gov.au.

  • Submissions template PDF (168 KB) Word doc (119 KB)

If you need more time or have any questions you can email us at AhpraConsultation@ahpra.gov.au or telephone us on 1300 419 495

Publication of submissions

We publish submissions at our discretion. We generally publish submissions on our website to encourage discussion and inform the community and stakeholders about consultation responses. Please let us know if you do not want your submission published.

We will not publish on our website, or make available to the public, submissions that contain offensive or defamatory comments or which are outside the scope of the subject of the consultation. Before publication, we may remove personally identifying information from submissions, including contact details.

We can accept submissions made in confidence. These submissions will not be published on the website or elsewhere. Submissions may be confidential because they include personal experiences or other sensitive information. A request for access to a confidential submission will be determined in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth), which has provisions designed to protect personal information and information given in confidence. Please let us know if you do not want us to publish your submission or if you want us to treat all or part of it as confidential.

Published submissions will include the names of the individuals and/or the organisations that made the submission unless confidentiality is expressly requested.


 Listed below are links to the 'Current consultations' sections of each profession:

The independently-chaired Accreditation Committee undertakes consultation on accreditation reform and other National Scheme accreditation matters. Please see the link here to the Current consultations section for the Accreditation Committee.


 
 
Page reviewed 26/09/2023