Proposed amendments to health practitioner regulation will duplicate the current process and not achieve greater transparency, Queensland Law Society told a public parliamentary hearing yesterday.
At Parliament House, Society representatives appeared before the Health Environment and Innovation Committee to discuss the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024.
The bill was introduced to Parliament last month by Health and Ambulance Services Minister Tim Nicholls in a bid to improve public protection and public confidence in services provided by registered health practitioners.
It would require cancelled and disqualified practitioners to seek a reinstatement order from a responsible tribunal before applying to the National Board for re-registration.
Deputy chair of the QLS Health and Disability Law Committee and member of the QLS Occupational Discipline Law Committee, Claire Bassingthwaighte, said the proposed two-step process was not warranted.
Claire, who was joined by QLS President Genevieve Dee and Principal Policy Solicitor Kate Brodnik, said transparency around decision making could easily be achieved by publishing the board’s decision to re-register a de-registered practitioner.
“So sending a practitioner to the tribunal to take up the tribunal’s time and resources, to have assessors as well, bearing in mind that the board will also have clinicians of the appropriate profession on it, making the decision as well, this is taking up valuable resources for a fairly overworked, underfunded tribunal,” she said.
Claire pointed out the tribunal may conclude a practitioner can be re-registered, perhaps with conditions, only for the board to decide the opposite.
“It hasn’t made the process easier, it doesn’t necessarily add protection; it just really moves the apparent responsibility to the tribunal but not the actual responsibility,” she said.
“A simpler process would be, for increasing transparency, for the board decision to be published, if that was the aim of the legislation.”
Genevieve said the Society also wanted to draw attention to the impact that the proposed publishing of historical information on a public register may have on a person who had already proceeded through a disciplinary process.
“At this time, the entry on the register was not to be permanent and, had the practitioner been aware of this requirement, they may have taken a different approach to their matter,” she said
“This is why the retrospective application of laws is of great concern to the Society and our members.
“The affected person has no opportunity to respond to the change in circumstances now imposed on them.
“In a similar vein, the regulators and tribunal involved in the original finding and sanction based their decisions on the law at the time, which included balancing community safety and protection. Changing the outcome now does not support this work.
“We urge the government to consider the very real impact that publishing historical data may have on the individual’s reputation, livelihood and wellbeing, as well as on the community, in circumstances where salient details and nuance may be lost over time.”
The committee is due to table its report on 7 February 2025.
Read the QLS submission here.
Share this article