Audit

About audit

Ahpra and the National Boards have developed a nationally consistent approach to auditing health practitioners’ compliance with mandatory registration standards. Audits are an important part of the way National Boards and Ahpra can better protect the public. They help to ensure that practitioners are meeting the mandatory registration standards and provide important assurance to the community and the Boards.

Board specific audit information

Links to the Board specific audit pages that include resources, templates and information for audit participants are listed below:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practice Board of Australia audit page 
• Chinese Medicine Board of Australia audit page 
• Chiropractic Board of Australia audit page
• Dental Board of Australia audit page 
• Medical Board of Australia audit page 
• Medical Radiation Practice Board of Australia audit page 
• Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia audit page 
• Occupational Therapy Board of Australia audit page 
• Optometry Board of Australia audit page 
• Osteopathy Board of Australia audit page 
• Pharmacy Board of Australia audit page   
• Physiotherapy Board of Australia audit page
• Podiatry Board of Australia audit page 
• Psychology Board of Australia audit page

Background to audit

Ahpra and the National Boards conducted pilots with a number of professions in 2012 and 2013 that helped determine the size, frequency and type of audits required. We used these pilots to help establish our ongoing audit methodology.

Details of the pilots, including reports are available below:

Practitioner audit - phase 1

In 2012, the first phase of the pilot audit was conducted with the pharmacy profession and a subsequent pilot undertaken with the pharmacy, optometry and chiropractic professions. A public report is now available:

• Practitioner audit pilot report - phase 1 (472 KB,PDF) 

Practitioner audit - phase 2

The phase 2 pilot audit started in late 2012. It was conducted in line with the recommendation of the phase 1 audit pilot report and involved auditing a fixed sample size from the pharmacy, chiropractic and optometry professions. The public reports are now available: 

• Chiropractic audit report - phase 2 - July 2013 (419 KB,PDF), Word version (576 KB,DOCX)
• Optometry audit report - phase 2 - July 2013 (365 KB,PDF), Word version (576 KB,DOCX)
• Pharmacy audit report - phase 2 - July 2013 (373 KB,PDF), Word version (577 KB,DOCX)

Practitioner audit - phase 3

Using a refined process and including the findings from the first and second phases, a third phase started in May 2013 for the nursing and midwifery professions. This phase ran for several months over the period of nursing and midwifery renewals for 2013-14.

Nurses and midwives were randomly selected when they applied to renew their registration. This applied to both paper and online renewal applications.

Those selected to participate were audited for compliance with the recency of practice and continuing professional development registration standards.

A public report is now available:

• Nursing and midwifery audit report - Phase 3 - March 2014 (140 KB,PDF), Word version (580 KB,DOCX)