Ahpra

Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency

The issue

In Australia, in order to practice as a physiotherapist, you must be registered with the Physiotherapy Board of Australia. If Ahpra receives complaint against a health practitioner that appears to be a threat to public safety, their registration may be reviewed and conditions placed upon your registration accordingly. Ahpra may also review cases that do not appear to adhere to their guidelines such as advertising and in these cases, practitioners may be requested to change aspects of their practice. The APA works with Ahpra to make sure these guidelines and code of conduct are fair and equitable and uphold professional standards.

The steps we are taking

In 2021, Ahpra held a number of public consultations asking for people to have their say on documents that were recently reviewed or updated.

The APA provided submissions on:

• The revised Regulatory Principles for the National Scheme
• The review of the shared Code of conduct
• Other submissions include feedback to the Community Affairs References Committee into the administration of registration and notifications by Ahpra and related entities under the National Law. Following this submission we were invited to provide evidence to a Senate

How this helps

Background

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) works with the 15 National Boards, including Physiotherapy Board of Australia, to help protect the public by regulating Australia's registered health practitioners. Together, their primary role is to protect the public and set standards and policies that all registered health practitioners must meet. Each Board has a health profession agreement with AHPRA that sets out fees, budget and the services provided by Ahpra.

Physiotherapy Board of Australia (PBA)

The Physiotherapy Board of Australia has established a National Registration and Notifications Committee (RNC) from 1 October 2013, to support the work of the National Board in the national scheme. The National Board sets policy and professional standards, and the National RNC will continue to make individual notification and registration decisions affecting individual physiotherapists.

Functions of PBA

The functions of the Physiotherapy Board of Australia include:

• registering physiotherapists and students
• developing standards, codes and guidelines for the physiotherapy profession
• handling notifications, complaints, investigations and disciplinary hearings
• assessing overseas trained practitioners who wish to practise in Australia
• approving accreditation standards and accredited courses of study.

What you need to know

A comprehensive list of Ahpra’s codes and guidelines relating to physiotherapy can be found at the Physiotherapy Board of Australia’s Code and guidelines webpage.

If you wish to make a complaint about a member that does not fall within Ahpra’s remit i.e. is not a concern of public safety, please contact policy@australian.physio and we can provide it to our National Professional Standards Panel for consideration. For more information on the NPSP, please see the NPSP regulations.

Next steps

We invite members to keep us informed at policy@australian.physio