Policy Win For Independent Health Workforce And Training, Australia

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Article Date: 26 Jun 2009 - 3:00 PDT

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The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) welcomes the amendments made to the Health Workforce Australia Bill 2009 this week. The Bill establishes the Health Workforce Authority (HWA) as proposed by the Council of Australian Governments (CoAG). The legislation was passed subject to an amendment, which restricts the HWA from having responsibility for the accreditation of clinical education and training, which includes general practice vocational training.

"This is a significant win for our patients and a strong endorsement of the independent accreditation of general practice education and training by the Australian Medical Council; a longstanding process, which has always been supported by the RACGP," said Dr Chris Mitchell, RACGP President and GP in northern New South Wales.

"The RACGP believes in the general practice profession setting and accrediting its education standards. We believe in an accreditation system that ensures the best outcomes for our patients; in our submissions to the CoAG process we have argued that this is best delivered by a system that ensures the accreditation of specialist medical education and training remains independent of governments.

"We welcome the recognition in the Bill that the RACGP and other specialist medical colleges are, as accredited by the Australian Medical Council, the appropriate bodies to set the standards for training."

The RACGP continues to advocate for similar amendments to CoAG's Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (Bill B) and will be providing feedback on the exposure draft over the coming weeks.

Members can read the full set of RACGP submissions to the CoAG consultation process at http://www.racgp.org.au/reports.

Source
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP)