National accreditation for health professionals a step closer

National Registration and Accreditation for Health Professionals will create a more streamlined system better equipped to deal with patient safety issues, Health Minister Stephen Robertson said today.

Mr Robertson – chair of the Australian Health Ministers’ Conference responsible for introducing the scheme – told a Brisbane forum today the scheme would establish the foundations for a more flexible, sustainable, mobile and responsive health workforce.

“National registration and accreditation will establish consistent national standards and processes for registering individual health professionals across all the states and, most importantly, improve information sharing across health professional bodies,” he said.

“This means there will be consistent procedures for handling complaints and investigations, and for monitoring conditions imposed on impaired practitioners.

“The scheme will also introduce uniform rules for the accreditation of health education and training programs and, most importantly, improve information sharing across health professional bodies.”

Mr Robertson was addressing the State Forum of the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme for Health Professionals.

He said the provision of good quality health care in Australia relied on the commitment and skill of about 500,000 health professionals.

Mr Robertson said Queensland had the responsibility of developing and hosting the primary legislation to establish the national accreditation scheme.

He said the first Bill, to be introduced into the Queensland Parliament later this year, would establish the bodies that would oversee and manage the registration and accreditation of health professionals.

Mr Robertson said the scheme would initially cover 10 registered health professions and applications had been invited from other partially registered professions.

Today’s forum was the forerunner to similar conferences in each State and Territory, with a national forum set down for 4 September in Canberra.

The Australian Health Ministers’ Conference has agreed to implement the national accreditation scheme by July 2010.

MEDIA: Martin Philip 3225 2680 or 0407 675 008