Ahpra’s end of year report has some good news for medical professionals, with an 8.6% drop nationally in notifications made about bad behaviour and 1.5% of registered health practitioners having a concern raised about them in 2022/23.
The 17,096 notifications made across the country related to 13,584 individuals.
Practitioners were referred to tribunals on 231 occasions for the most serious matters. Tribunals finalised 129 cases during 2022-23, of which 98% resulted in disciplinary action, with continued efforts to uncover and act on sexual misconduct in the healthcare system resulting in 841 allegations of boundary violations relating to 728 health practitioners.
Ahpra said the sustained increase in reports over the past two years reinforced its blueprint for reform, which has already seen a public review of the criminal history registration standard, the rollout of specialist investigators and an expansion of the Notifier Support Service, staffed by social workers.
By the numbers:
- Three-quarters of the 442 criminal complaints received related to alleged unlawful use of title.
- Several hundred cosmetic surgery notifications were received, and most related to just 15 practitioners. The Cosmetic Hotline received 315 calls. A targeted cosmetics advertising audit reviewed advertising by 69 practitioners, of which 65 had non-compliant advertising.
- Eight cases were prosecuted by Ahpra in the criminal courts and all related to holding out offences. Six cases resulted in findings of guilt, one was dismissed, and in one case the defendant left Australia before entering a plea.
- There were 79,759 domestic and international criminal history checks carried out.
- There was a 3% increase in the number of notifications closed, with 10,659 complaints finalised. There were 16.1% fewer notifications open at 30 June 2023 than at the same time last year.
The report also revealed there were 877,119 registered health practitioners across 16 regulated professions, with the number of international practitioners given the green light to work in Australia over the past year almost doubling under a streamlined registration process.
More than 42,000 newly registered Australian health graduates were joined by 19,288 overseas-trained practitioners, with a 92% increase in new overseas registrants, of which more than half were nurses and midwives.
Ahpra’s CEO Martin Fletcher said an overhaul of registration processes has cut the assessment time for international applications from 29 days to just 10, and from 11 days to seven for Australian graduates.
“To address workforce shortages, we have cut the complexity and time it takes to register practitioners and get them ready to work where they are most needed,” Mr Fletcher said.
“Increased exam places for internationally qualified nurses, enhanced information for employers and clearer information for international applicants on the Ahpra website all contributed to the workforce boost.”
By the numbers:
- Health practitioners now make up 6% of all Australian workers.
- Numbers of practitioners continue to grow, with 14.3% more applications for registration than last year and a 4.7% increase in renewals of registration.
- Almost 184,000 students were studying to be health practitioners in 2022-23, in more than 802 approved programs of study or clinical training programs.
However, Ahpra said more work was needed to increase the rates of practitioners identifying as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander working in the nation’s health systems. In 2022-23, only 10,813 health practitioners identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander – just 1.2% of all registered health practitioners, and well short of the 3.8% representation in the general population.