While the AMA isn’t against incoming national law changes, it has labelled the rushed consultation period “unacceptable”.
The legislative changes needed for AHPRA to publish the names and regulatory histories of doctors found guilty of serious sexual misconduct does not meet the “basic level of consultation” expected by the public, the AMA has said.
The Health Practitioner Regulation National Law and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024 was introduced into Queensland parliament in September.
If passed, it will create a nationally consistent approach to reinstating cancelled registrations, allow AHPRA to publish a practitioner’s entire regulatory history and ensure that non-disclosure agreements do not prevent notifiers from coming forward.
It’s the third part in the suite of reforms to the health regulator which kicked off in 2022; legislation that allows it to issue a public statement on a clinician while an investigation is still underway has already passed.
Queensland is the host jurisdiction for AHPRA, meaning that any legislative changes to the national scheme must pass through its unicameral parliament.
It’s also going into an election in just three weeks. The government went into caretaker mode on 1 October.
Normally, stakeholder organisations like the RACGP and AMA would have between 30 and 60 days to write a submission on legislation like this amendment.
But because it was only introduced on 11 September, two and a half weeks before caretaker mode kicked in, stakeholders were given just 14 days to respond.
“Changes to the National Law have significant impacts on the careers and livelihoods of every health professional,” the AMA wrote in its submission.
“Any amendment to the National Law demands meticulous and comprehensive analysis, along with meaningful consultation with all relevant stakeholders.
“Fourteen days is unacceptable.”
The date of the Queensland election has been set for months and the bill itself has been in development since February 2023, the association pointed out.
“By speeding this Bill through, the [state Health ministers meeting] has again sought to avoid appropriate scrutiny,” it said.
The AMA was broadly supportive of the legislation itself.
Its main concern was that the proposal to expand information on the public register – i.e. permanently publish a practitioner’s entire regulatory history on the national register – was too harsh.
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In cases involving a practitioner committing professional misconduct of a sexual nature, though, the AMA agreed that patients have a right to know.
“The AMA would therefore support the ongoing publication of a practitioner’s regulatory history in relation to all transgressions of a sexual nature, including sexual boundary violations,” it said.
“Before supporting the publication of the wider, full regulatory history of a practitioner, the AMA believes further justification must be shown as to why this proposal has been made.
“This proposal would transgress the principle that practitioners should not be punished in perpetuity or in a disproportionate way for relatively minor offences (of a non-sexual nature) committed long ago.”
The RACGP was similarly critical of this aspect of the bill.
Despite the rushed consultation, the Queensland government did not pass the bill before the state went into caretaker mode, which means that it has automatically lapsed.
The next parliament will have to reintroduce the legislation.
