AHPRA enacts power to publicly name practitioners

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) has made first use of its controversial power to name a healthcare professional it believes poses serious risk, in a public statement released this week.
 
While the health practitioner is not a GP, the statement marks the first occasion AHPRA’s new power has been enacted under legislation designed to protect public health and safety.
 
The wider-reaching power came into effect in May 2023 as part of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2022.
 
It allows AHPRA and the National Boards to issue statements about health practitioners who are the subject of investigations or disciplinary proceedings, provided there is a ‘reasonable belief’ of ‘serious risk’ to the public.
 
Statements are posted online via the AHPRA and National Boards websites, and in cases involving a registered practitioner, against that person’s registration on the national register.
 
AHPRA CEO Justin Untersteiner said issuing this statement means ‘we can warn the public while we continue to take steps to assess and investigate matters’.
 
‘We take the matter of issuing public statements very seriously and will only ever issue such statements in exceptional circumstances where the public needs to be informed from a safety perspective,’ he said.
 
‘The threshold for issuing a public statement is set at a high level.’
 
The current case relates to a suspended West Australian (WA) practitioner under investigation who held dual registration as a dentist and a nurse, and may be continuing to present himself in those roles while suspended and unregistered.
 
He is also facing criminal charges before the WA courts, for which he has entered a plea of not guilty, according to AHPRA.
 
While the powers have been a possibility for the past two years, this is the first time the regulator has moved to do so.
 
GP Dr Michael Bonning, Deputy Chair of the RACGP Expert Committee – Funding and Health System Reform, said protecting the public is always at the forefront of any GP’s mind but public statements should only be made as a last resort after all other avenues of risk mitigation have been explored.
 
‘It is very reassuring that while these powers have been available to AHPRA for more than two years, they have not used them until the point of this practitioner who is facing specific criminal charges,’ he told newsGP.
 
‘If there becomes a culture of naming and shaming it should remain as a last resort, because the overwhelming majority of Australians have great trust, and for good reason, with their healthcare providers because those practitioners abide by the law but also hold themselves to very high professional standards.
 
‘We don’t want to have thresholds that are too low and therefore end up capturing practitioners whose case would have been managed, or whose risk to the public could have been managed, at a lower level, and I think that’s really important.’
 
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