NSW Annual Report Summary 2015/16

Foreword from Acting NSW State Manager, Peter Freeman

It has been a year of significant achievement and action in the NSW office. In partnership with National Boards, the NSW office manages and assesses the registration of 190,986 practitioners – 29% of all registered practitioners nationally and an increase of 5,739 from 2014/15.

Highlights of 2015/16

• Streamlining the registration process: The NSW office implemented processes for more timely assessments and improving practitioners’ registration experience.
• Increased collaboration: Working together with the WA office to assess applications for registration from international nurses and midwives resulted in us completing 3,450 of the 3,550 applications received from that contingent this year.
• Defining the co-regulatory model: A memorandum of understanding was developed to confirm the relationships, roles and responsibilities of AHPRA and the Health Professional Councils Authority (HPCA) when exchanging information relevant to regulatory matters involving practitioners under the National Law.

Working in partnership with National Boards

NSW is a co-regulatory jurisdiction so the main focus of the NSW office is managing registrations, including assessing new applications for registration and changes in registration type. In 2015/16, the NSW office managed 27.9% of all new applications for registration received by AHPRA nationally.

Building stakeholder relationships

This year, representatives from our office have attended various stakeholder forums to share information about the National Scheme and, when relevant, profession-specific issues. For example, NSW is a destination for visiting internationally qualified health practitioner groups, and we delivered a number of presentations on the national registration scheme to those visitors. We have also actively sought input from community and hospital pharmacists in the development of the Pharmacy Board of Australia’s registration examination scenarios and question bank.

Managing risk through local decision-making

We have continued to work in partnership with our co-regulatory partners, the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) and the HPCA to develop enhanced processes to assist with notification matters (complaints and concerns about health practitioners and students). This year we have hosted meetings to support opportunities for shared activities of National Boards and NSW Councils.

While complaints about health practitioners are not managed by AHPRA in NSW, the NSW office does assist in managing statutory offence complaints – matters such as the unlawful use of protected titles, performing restricted acts, unlawfully claiming to be a registered health practitioner, and unlawful advertising. The NSW legal team has been successful in prosecuting a number of persons for using protected titles in the past 12 months.

Local office, national contribution

In 2015/16, we formed a virtual team in collaboration with the AHPRA WA office as the central assessment and processing team for internationally qualified nurses and midwives (IQNM). The NSW office continues to deliver the national practitioner audit function, as well as coordinating the assessment of approved area-of-practice endorsements for conscious sedation for dentists.

I would like to thank the members of the NSW team for their valuable contributions to protecting the public over the past year. Shane Dann was State Manager from 1 July 2015 until 1 April 2016. I have acted as NSW State Manager since 2 April 2016.