Management of blood borne viruses

15 Jul 2014

National Boards expect practitioners to comply with CDNA guidance on and for health practitioners with blood borne viruses.

The role of health practitioner regulation is to protect the public.

One of the important ways the National Boards do this is by setting the professional standards that all registered health practitioners must meet and to manage risk to the public posed by individual registered health practitioners.

The Boards hold individual practitioners to account against the professional standards they set. They make decisions about individual practitioners case by case. They aim to manage risk to patients by restricting the registration – and practice – of individual practitioners only as needed to manage the risk to the public.

The Communicable Diseases Network Australia (CDNA) has issued guidance on and for health practitioners with blood borne viruses. The CDNA guidance is based on international research and concludes that the overall risk of transmission of HIV from infected health care workers is very low.

Under that guidance, health care workers are responsible for knowing their blood borne status, and for making sure their practice is consistent with the CDNA guidance. Healthcare workers with a blood borne virus must not conduct exposure prone procedures.

The National Boards expect practitioners to comply with this guidance.

The National Boards and AHPRA cannot legally disclose the identity of the health care worker involved.

The practitioner has advised their National Board of their blood borne status. The Board has reviewed this matter and determined that the practitioner has complied and will comply with the CDNA guidance, and therefore poses no risk to the public that needed to be managed.

The Board is satisfied that the public is protected and has decided to take no further action at this time.

For more information

• For registration enquiries: 1300 419 495 (within Australia) +61 3 8708 9001 (overseas callers) 
• For media enquiries: (03) 8708 9200