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RACGP pledges to simplify IMG processes
Significant changes could be on the way for international medical graduate recruitment, with the final version of the Kruk report due shortly.
The RACGP has spent time listening to its members with overseas qualifications to identify what can be improved.
The RACGP has committed to simplifying processes for international medical graduates (IMGs) to help bolster GP numbers across the country.
The potential changes come with the final report for the ‘Independent review of overseas health practitioner regulatory settings’, widely known as ‘the Kruk report’, due to be released imminently.
The review, overseen by former senior public servant Robyn Kruk, was agreed by National Cabinet last September to produce recommendations that could help ease health workforce shortages while maintaining high standards in healthcare quality and patient safety.
Following the release of an interim report in April, the College has committed to making its own assessment and accreditation processes simpler for applicants.
RACGP President Dr Nicole Higgins said she hopes these changes will create an easier pathway for international doctors to work in Australia.
‘The RACGP has been advocating to make it easier and more attractive for IMGs to come to Australia, to get more GPs into communities that need them,’ she said.
‘But we also know that, as a medical college which assesses and accredits IMGs to practice in Australia, we can help to make their journey easier.
‘We’ve spent time listening to our members with overseas qualifications who’ve gone through our processes to identify what can be improved, and we’ve committed to doing what we can to make it simpler, less onerous, and more streamlined.’
The measures being considered include:
- simplifying and amending comparability assessments
- reducing the training and skills comparability scores required
- simplifying and amending comparability assessments
- widening the type of training considered applicable
- removing the multi-source feedback requirement
- removing the requirement for a reflective essay
- reducing the minimum time on the Specialist Pathway from six to three months.
However, the College warned strongly against a recommendation in the interim report to transition equivalence assessments for specialist medical graduates
away from specialist medical colleges to the Australian Medical Council (AMC).
Dr Higgins cited a
2005 Queensland Public Hospital Commission of Inquiry Report prompted by the case of Dr Jayant Patel at the Bundaberg Base Hospital, in which the American surgeon was eventually jailed following a series of deaths.
Dr Higgins said the case ‘made clear the risks to patient safety when specialist colleges don’t have responsibility for assessing specialist IMGs’.
‘We cannot risk this happening again,’ she said.
The RACGP also said assessments must consider where overseas doctors had previously worked to ensure they understand practicing in a rural setting, with around half of Australia’s rural medical workforce made up of IMGs.
‘Rural doctors need to have the right skills and ability to work independently because there is often less support available, as well as cultural safety training,’ Dr Higgins said.
Other recommendations which were included in the interim report and supported by the RACGP include:
- creating a single portal for applications
- the removal of labour market testing for employers sponsoring visas for priority practitioners
- broadening age exemptions for permanent skilled visas
- continued workforce support and demand modelling.
According to
its terms of reference, the independent review was established to determine whether the current regulatory settings are ‘fit for purpose, comparable with similar countries, and are not imposing any unnecessary barriers or costs’.
In May,
a Federal Parliament committee heard how Australia is lagging in efforts to attract IMGs, with red tape causing delays to recruiting qualified doctors, and in some instances putting them off a move to the country altogether.
The comparatively high costs in Australia were also raised, with the
Primary Care Business Council detailing how recruiting an IMG in New Zealand takes around three months and costs $5000, while the same process averages 14 months in Australia at a cost of $23,000.
Ms Kruk, who formerly served as New South Wales Health Secretary and the inaugural CEO of the National Mental Health Commission, was appointed to lead the work for the review last December.
Under the scope of the review, she was tasked with making short-term recommendations that could be put into place within 12 months to ease skills shortages among a range of health practitioners, including doctors.
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