Action to exempt treating doctors from mandatory reporting laws could be close at hand, according to the AMA president.
Urgent action is needed to reduce burnout, stress and anxiety in doctors at all levels, immediate past AMA president Professor Steve Robson says.
Luckily, Professor Robson – who chairs the National Doctors Health and Wellbeing Leadership Alliance – has an action plan.
The plan itself was built off the Every Doctor Every Setting Framework launched in 2020 and has five components: improving training and work environments; improving capacity; improving the response to doctors impacted by mental illness; improving the medical profession culture; and improving coordinated action.
“The … action plan I’m launching [is] urgently needed because our medical workforce is experiencing unprecedented levels of stress, anxiety and burnout,” Professor Robson said.
“The impacts on individual doctors, and trainees, are harmful for them, and the patients they care for.”
Current AMA president Dr Danielle McMullen, a GP in Brisbane, encouraged her peers in general practice to read the framework.
“This stuff often feels like it’s relevant mainly to big hospitals and big employers, and that’s because there’s such a big workforce there, but it’s just as relevant at a practice level and even for individual and small business practices,” she told The Medical Republic.
The action plan directly acknowledged the level of concern among doctors and medical students that seeking assistance for a mental health concern could lead to an AHPRA investigation.
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Under pillar two, which deals with increasing capacity to recognise and respond to those needing support, the action plan includes identifying and promoting resources which explain the high threshold for mandatory reporting and improving understanding of the impact of notifications on health practitioners.
The measure for the former will be the number of organisations using said resources, while a measure for improving understanding is yet to be developed.
Dr McMullen said there was renewed momentum behind a harmonisation of mandatory reporting legislation, with the goal of aligning the eastern states and territories with Western Australia, which exempts treating doctors from making mandatory notifications about their doctor patients.
“In the meantime, it’s critical that every doctor who either is seeking help or is looking after other doctors knows that the bar for mandatory reporting is really high,” she said.
“Most doctors who have challenges with their mental health or their physical health don’t need to be reported to AHPRA.
“We can’t say often enough that seeking help is what’s really important, and in the vast majority of cases, a report to AHPRA is not necessary.”
AHPRA and the Medical Board of Australia were selected to be the lead organisations in this area of the action plan, with the target being medical schools, colleges, health services and the Council of Presidents of Medical Colleges.
Pillar three looked at reducing stigma associated with mental health concerns among doctors, with the desired outcome of increased willingness to seek help.
Specific tasks under this pillar were creating and disseminating guidelines for storytelling, building a lived experience strategy with ‘ambassadors’ and promoting research on recovery-at-work practices.
The wellbeing alliance held a summit in Sydney on Friday to launch the action plan.
