Landmark national law reforms require the regulator to publicly mark sexual misconduct decisions on practitioner records
Australia's national health regulator has begun adding past sexual misconduct findings against health practitioners to its public registers under new laws designed to strengthen patient safety and transparency.
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) confirmed that, from this week, information about sexual misconduct findings is being included on both the public register of practitioners and the register of cancelled practitioners, following amendments to the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law.
The first round of updates has affected 107 practitioners whose tribunal decisions involved sexual misconduct, Ahpra said. Of those, 86 are already listed on the register of cancelled practitioners.
The changes are retrospective and permanent, and will ultimately apply to all relevant tribunal decisions dating back to the start of the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme in July 2010.
Ahpra chief executive Justin Untersteiner said sexual misconduct represented a fundamental breach of the obligations owed by registered practitioners.
"Sexual misconduct by registered health practitioners is an unacceptable breach of trust that undermines public health and safety," he said in a statement.
Under the reforms, most tribunal decisions continue to be published online as before, with links from the public register.
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