New AHPRA Action campaign kicked off on Change.org
EDIT 28/03/14: SUCCESS! THE MEDICAL BOARD ANNOUNCED ON WEDNESDAY THAT IT WILL CHANGE SECTION 6.2.3 OF THE ADVERTISING GUIDELINES. THANK YOU FOR TAKING PART IN THE AHPRAaction CAMPAIGN!
The AHPRA Action campaign has stepped up a notch. Medical Observer is now media partner, the protest action has a new logo (see image) and a new public petition kicked off yesterday.
A Parliamentary Inquiry found that the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme, managed by AHPRA “remains a large and complex bureaucracy with potential confusion over lines of responsibility and accountability.”
AHPRA’s new advertising guidelines are exposing Australian health professionals to unnecessary risks and create more red tape and confusion.
AHPRA regulates over 600,000 Australian healthcare practitioners and charges registration fees. Lawyers said about the new guidelines: “(…) the very broad wording in paragraph 6.2.3 of the updated advertising guidelines potentially exposes all health practitioners to a risk of breaching section 133(1)(c) of the National Law.”
Enough is enough – the advertising guidelines must be changed.
How can AHPRA change its stance when it has to implement the national law? HEALTH PRACTITIONER REGULATION NATIONAL LAW (ACT) S133 says
Advertising
(1) A person must not advertise a regulated health service, or a business that provides a regulated health service, in a way that—
(a) is false, misleading or deceptive or is likely to be misleading or deceptive; or
(b) offers a gift, discount or other inducement to attract a person to use the service or the business, unless the advertisement also states the terms and conditions of the offer; or
(c) uses testimonials or purported testimonials about the service or business; or
(d) creates an unreasonable expectation of beneficial treatment; or
(e) directly or indirectly encourages the indiscriminate or unnecessary use of regulated health services.
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Thanks Sue, exactly why we didn’t need these confusing guidelines by AHPRA in the first place. It seems the issue is their interpretation of the law.
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