Australia’s health ministers have endorsed a broad package of reforms to the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme, with Ahpra directed to ‘immediately improve timeliness and quality of investigation processes and decision making’.
The Health Ministers Meeting Communique on 1 May 2026 outlines decisions on the final recommendations of the Independent Review of Complexity in the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (NRAS), Transforming health professionals regulation in Australia.
The review examined how Australia’s health practitioner regulation system could be made less complex, more consistent and more responsive, while maintaining its core focus on public protection.
A key area of reform is complaints handling, long identified as a pressure point for practitioners, patients and regulators.
Under the accepted reforms, Ahpra has been directed to “immediately improve timeliness and quality of investigation processes and decision making”, strengthen access to clinical advice across regulatory functions and implement a Complaints Navigator Service to improve the experience of notifications.
Ahpra will also be required to implement National Health Practitioner Ombudsman recommendations on vexatious complaints, introduce a formal national communications protocol with Health Complaints Entities and ensure notification systems identify patterns that may indicate broader systemic issues.
Ministers did not accept a recommendation to make Health Complaints Entities the single point of entry for complaints over time. Instead, further work will be undertaken to identify opportunities to streamline complaints handling across Ahpra and Health Complaints Entities, including consideration of a ‘no wrong door’ approach to complaints management.
In one of the most direct accountability measures, the Ahpra Board has been tasked with taking immediate action to improve its regulatory performance.
The communique states that the Ahpra Board must improve the ‘timeliness and quality’ of investigations and decision-making, as well as the availability of clinical advice across all regulatory functions.
The response also directs the Ahpra Board to request that the Regulatory Performance Committee identify tribunal cases that include significant commentary on the adequacy of Ahpra’s practices and processes, and advise on potential policy or legislative change.
Further work will also examine possible National Law amendments, including whether to establish a statutory right of review of notification decisions under the National Scheme, make panel referrals a more practical alternative to tribunals and consider the option of an independent Director of Proceedings.
While the response endorses a number of governance and process reforms, some of the more ambitious structural proposals have been deferred, rejected or accepted only in part.
A proposed integrated framework for regulating health professions according to risk has been deferred pending further work on alternative models for lower-risk professions.
Ministers accepted work to revise the risk assessment method for professions entering the National Scheme, with a new guidance document expected to inform future decisions from late 2026.
Ministers also did not accept an additional expressions of interest process to extend the National Scheme under current arrangements, noting that the revised risk assessment method is scheduled for completion in mid-2026.
A proposed large-scale Strategy Assembly on Health Workforce and Practitioner Regulation was also not accepted, with ministers noting that the health system is complex and that such a forum would be unlikely to capture the breadth of stakeholder perspectives.
The response also addresses regulation of non-registered practitioners, an area of growing relevance across parts of the health, wellness and aesthetic medicine landscape.
Health ministers accepted in part a commitment to complete implementation of the National Code of Conduct for Non-Registered Practitioners across all jurisdictions within 24 months.
The proposed National Register of Prohibition Orders was accepted in principle, pending further advice on hosting and funding arrangements. The communique states that such a register would support consumer access to information about non-registered health practitioners and strengthen regulation of this workforce.
However, some proposed actions relating to unlicensed and unaccredited private health organisations, and structured regulatory links with self-regulated allied health professions, were not accepted in their original form.
Ministers noted that further work on proportionate, risk-based regulation for lower-risk professions would be considered through other reform actions.
The response also places greater scrutiny on Ahpra’s own governance and performance.
Health ministers accepted a series of actions aimed at strengthening accountability across the National Scheme, including the development of a Ministerial Council Statement of Expectations to be issued to the Ahpra Board and renewed every two years.
Ministers also backed changes to Ahpra’s governance structure, including transitioning the Ahpra Agency Board to become the National Scheme Board, alongside an independent organisational capability review of Ahpra.
An implementation plan from that review is to be communicated to health ministers within 12 months.
