Australian Medical Association

The AMA Joint submission highlights the real risk that the new scheme will erode the medical board’s ability to protect patient safety, and addresses four major concerns with the proposed registration arrangements:

1. There is no recognition or guarantee of the continued role of medical colleges in determining specialist qualifications for, and conferring them on, medical practitioners;
2. The scope of practice for the other health professions will be able to be expanded without any obligation for one health profession board to consult with other boards, particularly the medical profession board;
3. The scheme seeks to introduce new onerous continuing competence/CPD requirements, which will effectively create a new scheme for the medical profession, and does not recognise the role of the colleges in continuing competence and professional development for the medical profession;
4. The medical board will be able to register a person who does not meet the requirements for registration in certain circumstances.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said the proposed new National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (NRAS) would not fulfil its intended purpose, as the AMA has long warned, after flawed template legislation passed the Queensland Parliament last night.

The Health Practitioner Regulation National Law Bill 2009 is intended to be the model legislation to be considered by all State and Territory Parliaments with local modifications.

Dr Pesce said the Queensland Bill, which provides for the creation of the new National Registration and Accreditation Scheme for the health professions, failed to take into account AMA concerns about the public interest and places too much power with Health Ministers.

Federal AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today it is important that the Queensland Parliament amends the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law Bill 2009 to ensure it best serves the community and the medical profession, and to set an example to the other States and Territories when it is their turn to pass the legislation.

Dr Pesce said the Federal AMA supports the State concerns expressed about the Bill by AMA Queensland.

"As the Queensland Bill will form the basis of legislation underpinning the new national registration and accreditation arrangements for medical practitioners right across Australia, it is important that the Queensland Parliament gets it right – right for patients, right for the community, and right for the medical profession,” Dr Pesce said.

The AMA has lobbied very strongly to secure a number of important changes to the scheme.  The AMA's concerns about elements of the scheme that have been addressed by government and incorporated into the scheme are set out below:

AMA PRESIDENT, DR ANDREW PESCE, Speech to MIIAA 3rd Medical Indemnity Forum, SYDNEY, 28 August 2009

National Registration – what does it mean for the average doctor

While welcoming some progress this week from the Australian Health Workforce Ministerial Council on the exposure draft of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law 2009, the AMA believes the Government's national registration and accreditation scheme is still unacceptable to the medical profession and the community because it fails the public interest test.

The Health Practitioner Regulation National Law 2009 (Bill B) underpins the new National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (NRAS) for the Health Professions, which is due to commence on 1 July 2010.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that  proposed additional words in relation to the reserve powers of the Ministerial Council to issue directions on accreditation standards are not robust enough to protect the public interest in terms of accreditation standards for medical education and training.

The AMA has also made a Joint Submission on the exposure draft to the Project Implementation Team.

This submission notes that the Ministerial Council has forfeited the power to approve accreditation standards, but has retained a power to give the national board policy directions on accreditation standards. The submission calls for additional provisions to be added to the legislation that:

• Defines the circumstances when the Ministerial Council can issue policy directions on accreditation standards; and
• Provides mechanisms for transparency and accountability of these directions.

The submission also outlines a range of other important functional operational and administrative issues with the scheme that need to be clarified and reflected, where necessary, in revisions to the Bill.

The AMA Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee inquiry into the national registration and accreditation scheme encapuslates the major concerns set out in our previous submissions to government on the proposed scheme.  The submission also sets out the AMA's proposal for a simple, cost effective alternative arrangement for a national system for medical practitioner registration that:

1. maintains the nationally consistent accreditation of medical education and training through an independent medical accreditation body with specific medical expertise;
2. implements mutual recognition of registration arrangements for medical practitioners across all states and create a ‘virtual’ national register; and
3. establishes a formal process for ongoing harmonisation of registration standards.

Doctors have accused governments of attempting to slip critical health legislation through state parliaments under the guise of national registration.

The legislation has already been rubber-stamped by Queensland’s Parliament and the other state health ministers have agreed to meet soon to push the legislation through their parliaments.

AMA President, Dr Rosanna Capolingua, said health departments were trying to keep the legislation, which could have profound effects on health standards across the country, ‘under the radar’.

“This is legislation by stealth. The bureaucrats want to hand health ministers absolute power over health standards in Australia, and the only way they can achieve this is through a smokescreen called ‘national registration’,” Dr Capolingua said.