On 14 June 2013, the Standing Council on Health (SCoH) made an in-principle decision to strengthen state and territory health complaints mechanisms relating to those health practitioners for whom statutory registration is not a prerequisite for practice. This is to be implemented through:
- a single national Code of Conduct for unregistered health practitioners to be made by regulation in each state and territory, and statutory powers to enforce the Code by investigating breaches and issuing prohibition orders;
- a nationally accessible web based register of prohibition orders; and
- mutual recognition of state and territory issued prohibition orders.
The Regulation Impact Statement (RIS) estimated that there were around 40 incidents of serious harm per year across Australia associated with the current practice of unregistered health practitioners. To address this issue the RIS considered the options of strengthening industry self-regulation, strengthening statutory health complaints mechanisms (based on a statutory code of conduct) and extending statutory registration to all currently unregistered health professions. The RIS concluded that strengthening statutory health complaints mechanisms was likely to be the most cost-effective option. The RIS was prepared by the Victorian Department of Health, on behalf of the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council, to inform the SCoH decision. The Decision RIS was assessed as adequate by the Office of Best Practice Regulation.
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