Australian health regulators at the coalface of the practitioner complaint notification process have received global recognition for their work.
The ‘notifications team’ within the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), which handles has received The Council on Licensure, Enforcement and Regulation (CLEAR)’s Regulatory Excellence Group Award.
With complaint notifications being a particularly stressful time for both practitioners and complainants, the global accolade acknowledges efforts by the country’s independent health regulator to improve engagement with affected parties.
AHPRA CEO Mr Martin Fletcher said the team had helped introduce surveys and interviews to ask how practitioners and the public felt during the notifications process, leading to material changes in the organisation’s approach.
“Since 2016, we have received over 5,000 surveys and undertaken nearly 100 face–to–face interviews with practitioners and notifiers,” he said.
“This work has transformed our staff training and support materials to ensure we deliver more pathetic approaches to responding to practitioners and the public, and that we are well prepared to deal with difficult situations.
“The impact of their work has been profound and far-reaching.”
In recent months, the award-winning team also developed the ‘Let’s talk about it’ video series to support notifiers and health practitioners as they go through the notification process.
To be considered for the award, AHPRA needed to demonstrate a team contribution to enhance occupational or professional regulation, regulatory processes or consumer and public protection.
This needed to be exemplified through exceptional leadership, vision, creativity, results and outcomes above the regular functions of the job or expectations, and beyond what is normally achieved.
AHPRA national director for notifications Mr Matthew Hardy accepted the award along with other project leaders at an event on 20 September.
Meanwhile, at the same conference AHPRA’s executive director of regulatory operations Ms Kym Ayscough was announced as the incoming president of CLEAR. She has been a member of the CLEAR Board of Directors since 2016 and is the first president from the southern hemisphere.
