MBA changes position on publishing disciplinary links
Following strong advocacy from the AMA the Medical Board of Australia (MBA) has reversed its decision to publicly link disciplinary and court decisions, where there was no finding against the doctor, to the registration details of doctors.
“It’s a minimum first step at this stage, but we welcome it,” said AMA President, Dr Tony Bartone.
There are a range of other measures that the AMA will continue to press for to reduce the potential for medical practitioners to suffer discrimination, including the removal of cases where:
- This issue was relatively minor,
- The issue occurred some years,
- The medical practitioner or their practice complied with a tribunal’s recommendations, and
- Other safeguards have been introduced to protect patients.
The AMA, in a letter to the Medical Board of Australia and AHPRA on the matter, highlighted that medical practitioners who were named in a tribunal hearing would be given less protection from discrimination than a person who had served a prison term.
Registration records where links to cases with no findings have been applied since March this year have now had those links removed.
