Performance summary

An overview of AHPRA’s performance across key functions

Registration in 2016/17

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678,938 health practitioners registered in Australia, across 14 professions

5,374 health practitioners identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, according to the workforce survey

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Over 21,000 more registrants than last year

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70,544 domestic and international criminal history checks made

98.5% of registrants renewed and completed their registration online

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68,989 new applications for registration received

2,800 applications for registration refused because they did not meet suitability/eligibility requirements

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157,213 students studying to be health practitioners through an approved program of study or clinical training program

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97% of registrants completed an online workforce survey at renewal


AHPRA: supporting the National Boards

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401,242 calls were made to AHPRA’s customer service team

Average of 1,543 phone calls each day, with up to 5,000 calls a day in peak times

92.6% of telephone enquiries were resolved at first contact

82% of health practitioners responded with ‘very satisfied’ when asked to rate their interaction with our customer service team

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599 appointments made:

  • 5 Ministerial appointments of National Board members
  • 87 National Board appointments of National Committees
  • 17 Ministerial appointments of state and territory board members
  • 490 National Board appointments for state, territory or regional committee membership
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54,925 web enquiries received

An average of 211 web enquiries each day

Our 15 websites received more than 12 million visits and more than 60 million page views

Our ‘Be safe in the knowledge’ campaign to raise public awareness of the Register of practitioners saw:

Be safe in the Knowledge

Notifications in 2016/17

10,540 practitioners had a notification raised about them nationally1

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6,898 notifications were received by AHPRA about health practitioners2

Immediate action was taken to restrict or suspend registration of a practitioner 320 times

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13.9% increase in notifications received by AHPRA

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1.6% of all registered health practitioners were the subject of a notification1

The top three reasons for a notification were:

  • clinical care (42.8%)
  • pharmacy/medication (11.9%), and
  • health impairment (8.4%)

32.1% increase in mandatory notifications3

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28.3% of health, performance and conduct matters resulted in regulatory action

91.3% of matters decided nationally by tribunals this year resulted in regulatory action


Appeals

82 appeals lodged in tribunals about Board decisions made under the National Law

Of 68 appeals that were finalised, 86% resulted in no change to the Board’s decision

The decision was amended or substituted for a new decision in 9 matters, and an appeal was withdrawn 44 times

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Statutory offences

1,895 advertising-related complaints received

1,416 closed following investigation

368 new offence complaints received relating to title protection

422 closed following investigation

15 cases of falsely claiming to be a registered health practitioner successfully prosecuted before the courts

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14 new offence complaints related to restricted practices

18 closed following investigation


Compliance

71 conditions or undertakings are currently listed in our National restrictions library, which are used to restrict registration to protect the public4

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3,011 practitioners were monitored by AHPRA for health, performance and/ or conduct during the year

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  1. Includes data provided by the Health Professional Councils Authority (HPCA) for NSW and the Office of the Health Ombudsman (OHO) for Queensland (based on available data from these entities at time of publication).
  2. This refers to notifications managed by AHPRA (excludes data from the HPCA and OHO). For information on how complaints about health practitioners are lodged and managed in Australia, see page 8 of the annual report.
  3. Notification that an entity is required to make to AHPRA under Division 2 of Part 8 of the National Law. Refer to the Glossary for more definitions.
  4. For more information, see the National restrictions library on the AHPRA website.