Local insights, National Scheme: State and territory summaries published

16 Jan 2017

Individual annual report summaries for each state and territory, offering insights into how the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme is operating across Australia, have now been published.

Based on the AHPRA and National Boards annual report for 2015/16, the summaries are available online.

Information includes applications for registration by profession, outcomes of criminal history checks and segmentation of the registrant base by gender, profession and specialty.

Notifications information includes the number of complaints or concerns received by profession, types of complaint, matters involving immediate action, monitoring and compliance, panels and tribunals, and statutory offence complaints.

Local insights from 2015/16

• Of the 657,621 health practitioners registered in Australia in 2015/16, New South Wales had the largest number, with 29% of registrants (190,986) listing NSW as their principal place of practice.
  
  
• Victoria was home to more than one quarter of all registrants, with 169,478 registered health practitioners in 2015/16.
  
  
• Queensland saw the greatest growth: Year on year, total registration numbers in the state grew by 4.6%. As at 30 June 2016, Queensland was the principal place of practice for 127,376 registered health practitioners.
  
  
• Western Australia had the highest percentage of women in the registered health workforce, totalling 78% of all practitioners in the state. Nationally, women comprised over three-quarters of the total registered health workforce.
  
  
• While the Northern Territory had the fewest registrants overall, at 1.1% or 6,913 practitioners, it was also home to the largest group of registered Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health practitioners in Australia, at 35.8% of the national total.
  
  
• Growth in notifications nationally: There were 10,082 notifications (complaints or concerns) received nationally during the year, an increase of 19.7%, representing 1.5% of the registration base. This is largely due to the 105.5% increase in matters referred to AHPRA from the Office of the Health Ombudsman in Queensland.
  
  
• An increase in mandatory notifications: The National Law requires that a registered health practitioner must notify the Board if, in the course of practising their profession, they form a reasonable belief that another registered health practitioner has behaved in a way that constitutes ‘notifiable conduct’. Mandatory notifications increased nationally, from 789 in 2014/15 to 920 in 2015/16.

To download any or all of the state and territory reports, or to view the main 2015/16 annual report, visit our microsite.

Hard copies of these reports are available by request via the online enquiry form on AHPRA’s website.

In the coming months, AHPRA and the National Boards will also publish summaries that break down 2015/16 data by profession.

State and territory media releases

For more information

• Visit the AHPRA website
• Lodge an online enquiry form
• For registration enquiries: 1300 419 495 (within Australia) +61 3 9275 9009 (overseas callers)
• For media enquiries: (03) 8708 9200  

Download a PDF of this Media release - Local insights, National Scheme: State and territory summaries published - 16 January 2017 (129 KB,PDF)