NT Annual Report Summary 2015/16

Foreword from NT Territory Manager, Jill Huck

The local NT office of AHPRA together with the National Boards continued to serve the NT community in 2015/16 by strengthening our relationships with local stakeholders and improving the way that we manage notifications.

Highlights of 2015/16

• A unique registrant base: The NT is the principal place of practice for 1.1% of registered health practitioners in Australia. While ratio of professions and practititoners is comparable to the rest of Australia based on population, there are some key areas of difference. For example, 35.8% of all registered Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health practitioners in Australia have a principal place of practice in the NT.
• Stakeholder engagement: The NT office undertook a number of stakeholder engagement activities that focused on healthcare practice in remote communities during the year.
• New ways of working: The NT office worked with the Health and Community Services Commissioner to implement better ways of working, and also participated in the pilot of a decision-making matrix for making sure complaints and notifications get to the right entity as quickly as possible.

Working in partnership with National Boards

The NT AHPRA office works in close partnership with the NT boards and committees of the medical, nursing and midwifery, dental, psychology and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health professions.

In this past year, a number of National Boards, including the Psychology Board of Australia, the Podiatry Board of Australia, the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practice Board of Australia, have utilised the NT AHPRA office when meeting in Darwin. As required, local staff provided support for stakeholder events, and consultation and information sessions.

A particularly successful stakeholder event was held in Darwin by the Podiatry Board of Australia, which was attended by almost all of the 24 podiatrists registered in the NT at that time.

Building stakeholder relationships

During the year, the NT office and local boards and committees worked closely with the NT Health and Community Services Complaints Commission (HCSCC) to redesign our consultation process for dealing with notifications (complaints). This resulted in a more efficient, effective and transparent joint decision-making process and has enhanced the relationship between the different entities.

As part of our work with the HCSCC, the NT participated in the development and piloting of a decision-making matrix for allocating matters between National Boards and HCEs and the development of joint protocols and community information products. The pilot involved the boards, AHPRA and the HCEs in three very different jurisdictions – Victoria, Western Australia and the NT. The model has since been adopted by two more jurisdictions.

As part of the new working relationship with the HCSCC, we have undertaken joint community education activities, including a productive session with health staff at the Darwin Corrections Centre.

During the year, we had regular contact with stakeholders such as Medicare, the NT Department of Health, the major hospitals, Aboriginal Medical Services, GP practices, Medicare Local, the major training providers and authorities including Charles Darwin University, the NT Medical Education and Training Council, the Centre for Remote Health, NT General Practice Education and various professional associations.

Formal presentations on regulatory issues were provided to a range of these organisations, often in response to specific requests for speakers and education sessions. Presentations were also made in connection with a number of outreach activities, including remote-area visits of the boards.

In September 2015 I was a special guest speaker at a Quality Assurance for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Medical Services (QAAMS) conference in Adelaide about the regulation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health practitioners.

During the year, the NT office facilitated the visits of two different boards to health clinics in remote Aboriginal communities. In October 2015, members of the NT Board of the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, local AHPRA staff and senior staff from the NT Department of Health, visited Wadeye and Palumpa (Nganmarriyanga) to meet with health practitioners in these communities.

In May 2016, we organised a successful trip for members of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioner Board of Australia to visit Julanimawu Health Centre in the Tiwi Islands to meet with local health practitioners and health clinic staff. This visit included presentations by local Aboriginal health practitioners and AHPRA staff.

The visits allowed all participants to exchange information and to discuss specific regulatory issues relevant to remote practice.

In June 2016, the Darwin office hosted a meeting of the AHPRA Agency Management Committee. We arranged for the Committee to meet local stakeholders, including the NT Minister for Health. A well-attended stakeholder forum was also held at Parliament House.

Managing risk through local decision-making

The mechanisms for managing risk are consistent in each state and territory under the National Scheme, and may include some or all of the following: immediate action; imposing restriction; accepting undertakings; suspension or cancellation of registration; ongoing compliance monitoring of practitioners; and/or audits.

Boards may also refuse or impose conditions on registration while making decisions on registration applications.

The NT office and local boards give high priority to quickly identifying high-risk matters and managing them appropriately, including taking immediate action, prioritising investigations and referring matters to panels and tribunals when appropriate.

One matter we referred to the Health Professional Review Tribunal during the year involved six patient notifications about a dentist who was providing a ‘service’ to remote mining towns and charging patients upfront for dentures, crowns and other dental work, which was never provided. The Tribunal cancelled the dentist’s registration and disqualified him from applying for registration for two years.

Local office, national contribution

As well as managing local registration and regulation matters, the NT office participates in cross-jurisdictional work. We provide secretariat support to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioner Board of Australia, and in 2015/16, we took on additional responsibility for processing physiotherapy applications lodged in New South Wales, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory. We also adopted a quality assurance role regarding papers for the NT, South Australia and Western Australia Regional Board of Psychology Board of Australia.

Our notifications team contributed by taking on the investigation of a number of complex matters where concerns had been raised about practitioners who practised in a number of different Australian states and territories.

As I am leaving AHPRA at the end of 2016 as a planned step towards retirement, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Eliza Collier to the role of NT Manager. I would also like to acknowledge the high-quality work undertaken by staff, board and committee members in the NT, and extend my sincere gratitude to them for their hard work, professionalism and commitment.

Finally, I would like to thank AHPRA staff and board members locally and nationally for their friendship and support over the past six years. It has been an honour to work with so many wonderful people.