Health Professions United in Rejecting COAG National Registration Proposal

The Prime Minister said that he does not consider that COAG 'will sign up to anything that diminishes the high standards of professional health services in Australia'.

AMA President, Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, said today that the COAG meeting in April gives the States and Territories the perfect opportunity to get behind the Prime Minister's preferred model, which will ensure that health service quality is not compromised in any way.

"The right system is a system that protects and preserves the independence of each of the health professions, and which allows self-regulation," Dr Haikerwal said.

"It is a system that is more about quality and patient safety and less about creating new layers of bureaucracy.

"The right system is definitely not the system being pursued by COAG thus far."

Eight health professional groups are now united in their stance to reject outright the existing COAG proposal for a single national registration scheme for all health professionals, which has been pushed aggressively.

The eight professions - doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, optometrists, psychologists, chiropractors, and osteopaths - met senior representatives of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet last week to discuss the alternative agreed scheme of separate national boards to look after registration and accreditation of training issues for each professional group.

The Federal Government announced its opposition to the COAG proposal last month.

Dr Haikerwal said that the Premiers and Chief Ministers must now follow the Prime Minister's leadership on this issue.

"COAG must listen to the united voice of the health professions and support a national registration system that puts quality health care for patients first," Dr Haikerwal said.

"We are seeing unprecedented unity across the health professions on national registration," Dr Haikerwal said.