Our Teams
Our directorates
Regulatory Operations
Registration
The National Registration function includes over 300 people in the registration and renewal teams who are located across the country in every state and territory office. These teams are responsible for the registration and renewal of health practitioners in Australia to enable them to practise their profession. Ahpra publishes registers of practitioners so that important information about the registration of individual health practitioners is available to the public.
Each year we renew the registration of over 650,000 practitioners and receive over 70,000 new applications for registration. This includes around 35,000 applications from new graduates.
There are five streams within the Registration team:
- Express
- Case management
- International
- Program management
- Performance, quality and experience
Customer service team
Based in our Sydney office, our inbound call centre team are able to provide support and advice on a number of topics and guide you to the right team. They also manage our web-based enquiries. So we can support everyone, the operating hours of our Customer Service Team are from 8am to 8pm with some variances during daylight savings.
Notifications
Our Notifications team is responsible for responding to notifications (complaints) raised about registered health practitioners.
We receive notifications by phone, email, letter, face-to-face and via the Ahpra website. Most notifications are made by patients or their carers and relatives. We also receive notifications from employers, health practitioners, the police and other government entities.
We manage more than 9,000 notifications each year. We complete a risk assessment on every practitioner who is the subject of a notification we receive.
Our notifications function works nationally in the following teams;
- Intake and Assessment
- Investigations
- Immediate Action
- Boundaries Violation
- Clinical Input and Advice
Compliance
Ahpra's Compliance function works nationally to assess information and, where suspected or actual non-compliance is found, respond in ways that are proportionate to manage the risk of non-compliance and protect the public.
Compliance is the term used to describe the process of gathering information in order to monitor practitioners and assess their compliance with restrictions (conditions or undertakings) on their registration or to ensure those practitioners who are prohibited from practising are not in breach of this prohibition.
Legal Services
Ahpra's national legal practice comprises five functional areas focused on regulatory operations. Each of these units supports our Registration, Notifications and Compliance teams in providing functional advice and legal support in relation to their duties.
Our Legal Services team works national in the following teams;
- Professional Misconduct Unit
- Panels, Appeals and Advice Unit
- Criminal Offences Unit
- National Information Release Unit
- General Legal Advice Unit
Strategy & Policy
Strategy
The Strategy team provides leadership in the formation, communication, monitoring and execution of our strategy. The team provides an integrated approach to the management of strategic initiatives, that combined ensure an enterprise focus on strategy.
The Strategy Team also develops and manages the Health Profession Agreements (HPAs) between Ahpra and National Boards. The Team also assists National Boards with their annual regulatory planning activities, ensuring alignment to the National Scheme Strategy 2020-25 and Accreditation Scheme and coordinating multi-profession approaches to the delivery of initiatives and projects.
Policy
The Policy team provides policy leadership for all regulatory functions, professions, and whole-of-scheme issues including research, data and intelligence, and evaluating policy effectiveness.
Our policy function works nationally in the following teams:
- Multi Profession Policy
- Research and Evaluation
- Regulatory Data and Intelligence
- Accreditation
Regulatory Governance
The national Regulatory Governance team provides national leadership in the delivery of strategic governance, regulatory advice, and executive and administrative support ensuring good regulatory governance between National Boards, Ahpra and Accreditation Authorities.
Our teams work nationally to provide a National Boards Secretariat (Including Executive Officers) and related governance and regulatory advice, as well as overseeing the development, management and delivery of the governance program to support board effectiveness, engagement and development.
Engagement
The Engagement team works closely with Ahpra's partners and stakeholders to build trust and confidence in our work through strategic engagement.
Our Engagement teams work nationally and are responsible for
- Internal and External communications
- Government Relations
- Strategic relationships including the Professions Reference Group (PRG), Community Reference Group (CRG) and National Boards
- International engagement, supporting Ahpra's designation as a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for health workforce collaboration
- Supporting the National Scheme's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and Cultural Safety Strategy
- Supporting Ahpra's Reconciliation Action Plan
Finance and Risk
The Finance and Risk directorate is responsible for supporting Ahpra's regulatory and strategic work ensuring long-term sustainability of the National Scheme. We provide strategic financial and risk management advice and services and do so in line with the overall National Scheme goals and objectives.
As we are fully funded by registrants' fees, it is important that we carry out our operations efficiently and effectively. We have to make good decisions, plan and invest wisely, and have the appropriate checks and balances in place to safeguard our funds.
Information Technology
Ahpra's Information Technology directorate works to partner with other directorates within Ahpra, in delivering the required technology services to perform health regulation for Australia. We are an agile team in an ever-changing environment, providing technical solutions and initiatives to create a more inclusive and efficient working environment.
We strive to become more proactive and respond to our working environment with professionalism, accountability and respect, while building strong stakeholder relationships
The IT directorate follows Ahpra's vision and mission and work to deliver positive outcomes and experiences, and to build a 'One Ahpra' environment.
People & Culture
People and Culture provide an end-to-end solution for servicing the needs of our people through the whole of their Ahpra lifecycle. This includes services such as recruitment, payroll and remuneration, human resources and business partnering, organisational development, facilities management and health and wellbeing.