National Registration Update
At its meeting on 26 March 2008, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreed to the introduction of a single national registration and accreditation scheme for health professionals and steps to address health workforce skills shortages. COAG agreed to establish the scheme by 1 July 2010. This had been foreshadowed in earlier announcements in July 2006 and April 2007.
The national registration and accreditation scheme will consist of a Ministerial Council, an independent Australian Health Workforce Advisory Council, a national agency with an agency management committee, national profession-specific boards, committees of the boards, a national office to support the operations of the scheme, and at least one local presence in each State and Territory.
National registration will permit health professionals to practise across State and Territory borders without having to re-register. This will improve workforce mobility, allowing health practitioners to move easily to a new State, reduce red tape, provide greater safeguards for the public and promote a more flexible, responsive and sustainable health workforce.
The new scheme will initially cover nine health professions: medical practitioners, nurses and midwives, pharmacists, physiotherapists, psychologists, osteopaths, chiropractors, optometrists and dentists (including dental hygienists, dental prosthetists and dental therapists). |
 |
Features of the new arrangements include
- a continuing role for Health Ministers
- a single consolidated scheme
- a new national professional board for each of the nine professions
- each profession will develop standards for its profession for approval by Health Ministers
- individual registration and accreditation decisions will remain the responsibility of the professions
- community representatives will play a key role in the new scheme.
The structure and function of the national scheme will be set out in legislation establishing the scheme. Each of the States and Territories will repeal their existing registration legislation, which will have the effect of abolishing the current State and Territory based registration boards.
The single national scheme, to be established by 1 July 2010, will include registration and accreditation of health professions’ education and training. As a transitional measure, the Ministerial Council (or in the event that the Ministerial Council has not been established, by the Australian Health Ministers' Conference (AHMC)) will assign accreditation functions to existing accreditation bodies, with the requirement that within 12 months of the new scheme they meet standards and criteria set by the national agency for the establishment, governance and operation of external accreditation bodies.
The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) consists of 10 members: the Prime Minister of Australia, the Premiers of Australia's six States, the Chief Ministers of the two mainland Territories which have self government, and the President of Australian Local Government Association.
The role of COAG is to initiate, develop and monitor the implementation of policy reforms that are of national significance and which require cooperative action by Australian governments.
The outcomes of COAG meetings are contained in communiqués released at the end of each meeting. For more information, see www.coag.gov.au
The Intergovernmental Agreement identifies the objectives, scope and governance, legislative, administrative and financial arrangements for the scheme. For more information on the Intergovernmental Agreement, see www.coag.gov.au/meetings/260308/#related
|