NSW Annual Report Summary 2015/16

Foreword from the AHPRA Chair and CEO

The regulation of almost 660,000 registered health practitioners across 14 health professions and a federation of eight states and territories is a large and important task.

AHPRA and the National Boards rely on the local knowledge and expertise of boards, committees and our offices in each state and territory to protect the public Australia-wide. Our number one priority is patient safety while enabling a competent and flexible health workforce to meet the current and future health needs of the community.

NSW has 190,986 registered health practitioners. This represents 29% of all Australian practitioners, a growth of 3.1% from last year.

Working in a co-regulatory jurisdiction, AHPRA’s NSW office manages the registration of practitioners, monitors practitioners with conditions on their registration to ensure compliance, and deals with statutory offences. It takes a collaborative approach to decision-making and works closely with the Health Professional Councils Authority, the Health Professional Councils and the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, which manage complaints (notifications) in NSW.

During 2015/16, AHPRA managed 94 notifications about practitioners with a principal place of practice in NSW where the issue occurred outside the state.

The key focus for the NSW office in 2015/16 was on building stakeholder engagement and achieving greater efficiencies in core processes. This office managed 28.1% of new registration applications nationally. The NSW and Tasmanian registration teams now work as a single team, using the same processes, and a new digital approach has been implemented to cut down on paperwork and save time. The NSW registration team has also worked closely with the Western Australia (WA) team on assessing applications from internationally qualified nurses and midwives, which has resulted in more timely assessments.

In partnership with local boards and committees, the NSW office ensures timely and effective regulatory decision-making, working with the local state boards and committees. This is consistent with our shared regulatory principles and our commitment to being a risk-based regulator.

We thank the staff of the AHPRA NSW office, boards and committee members for their hard work and commitment over the past year. While much has been achieved, there is always more to do. We look forward to continuing to work with them to serve the NSW community.