Media release

13 Feb 2014

The National Boards have published revised guidelines and codes of conduct, and a new social media policy, which come into effect from mid-March.

Revised guidelines, code and policy released today, effective from March 2014

The Medical Board of Australia has released a suite of documents today that will come into effect from mid-March 2014. These documents are:

• revised Good Medical Practice: a code of conduct for doctors in Australia
• revised Guidelines for advertising regulated health services
• revised Guidelines for mandatory notifications
• new Social media policy.

Registered medical practitioners need to familiarise themselves with these documents to ensure their practice meets the Medical Board’s expectations when they come into effect.

All the documents other than Good Medical Practice are common across all the professions that are regulated through the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (the National Scheme). Each health practitioner Board has approved the guidelines and Social media policy.

The Board reviewed Good Medical Practice, the Advertising guidelines and the Mandatory notifications guidelines as part of a scheduled review three years into the National Scheme. These are the first set of revised documents to be released this year, with more to come later in 2014. The Social media policy is new and has been developed to address emerging social media issues which are not covered in the Advertising guidelines and Good Medical Practice.

Medical Board of Australia Chair, Dr Joanna Flynn AM, said National Boards consulted widely late last year on the draft versions of the new guidelines, Social media policy and code of conduct.

‘The National Boards have an ongoing focus on best practice regulation in the public interest, and in public protection,’ Dr Flynn said.

‘The experiences from the first three years of the National Scheme were applied when these documents were being reviewed to make sure that they are clear and make it easier for practitioners to understand their obligations, and for members of the community to understand what is expected of health practitioners.’

Further information about the new guidelines, Social media policy and revised Good Medical Practice: a code of conduct for doctors in Australia is available on the Medical Board website.

FAQ and additional information

• FAQ (118 KB,DOCX) on the transition from the current to the new/revised documents.
• Document (513 KB,DOCX) showing the differences between the current and revised Mandatory notifications guidelines.

For more information

• Lodge an online enquiry form
• Visit the Medical Board’s website for specific registration information and FAQ
• For registration enquiries: 1300 419 495 (within Australia) +61 3 8708 9001 (overseas callers)
• For media enquiries: (03) 8708 9200

Download a PDF of this Media release - Revised guidelines for practitioners released today effective from March 2014 - 13 February 2014 (242 KB,PDF)