Monitoring and compliance

What is monitoring and compliance?

Ahpra’s monitoring and compliance team monitors health practitioners and students with conditions or undertakings (restrictions) on their registration, or whose registration has been suspended or cancelled. This is one of the important ways that Ahpra helps National Boards to protect the public and manage risk to patients. This is consistent with our regulatory principles and is one of our responsibilities under the National Law.

Our monitoring and compliance program is designed to ensure that practitioners are complying with restrictions on their registration, or identify if they are not so we can manage any risk to patients. The program also confirms that the health practitioner or student whose registration has been suspended or cancelled is not practising their profession.

Restrictions are placed on registration through a number of different mechanisms, including for example as an outcome of a notification or of an application for registration or renewal of registration.

Each monitoring case is assigned to one of five streams.

1. Health

The health practitioner or student is being monitored because they have a physical or mental impairment, disability, condition or disorder (including substance abuse or dependence) that detrimentally affects or is likely to detrimentally affect their ability practise the profession or undertake clinical training. See the Ahpra glossary.

2. Performance

The practitioner is being monitored to ensure they practise safely and appropriately while demonstrated deficiencies in their knowledge, skill, judgement or care in the practise of their profession are addressed.

3. Conduct

The health practitioner is being monitored to ensure they practise safely and appropriately because of their criminal history, or they have demonstrated a lesser standard of professional conduct than expected.

4. Suitability/eligibility

The practitioner is being monitored because they:

• do not hold an approved or substantially equivalent qualification in the profession
• lack the required competence in the English language
• do not meet the requirements for recency of practice, or
• do not fully meet the requirements of any other approved registration standard.

5. Prohibited Practitioner/Student

Used for practitioners who are subject to a cancellation order, surrender of registration or change to non-practising registration in lieu of further Part 8 action¹ or suspension and for students who are suspended.

¹Where the registration was surrendered under s137 or changed to non-practising in lieu of the Board progressing further action under Part 8