National standards for unregulated practitioners

A meeting of Commonwealth, state and territory health ministers in Melbourne today backed a Brumby Government plan to establish new rules for unregulated health practitoners.

Victorian Health Minister Daniel Andrews said the new laws would stop sham healers from exploiting sick people seeking alternative health treatments.

“Victoria wants to ensure that there is a nationally-consistent approach to protect vulnerable patients from unethical and incompetent practitioners,” Mr Andrews said.

“This scheme will establish national standards of conduct for unregistered health practitioners and give patients a mechanism to report complaints and have them investigated.

“While the majority of unregistered health practitioners provide safe, competent and ethical services, there are instances where some unscrupulous practitioners engage in serious misconduct", he said.

“Victoria has experienced a steady increase in the number and complexity of complaints to the Department of Health, practitioner registration boards and the Health Services Commissioner."

A Code of Conduct for Health Practitioners will include requirements around informed consent and ethical practice. Mr Andrews said the public would be able to report complaints to an independent authority empowered to enforce the code.

The ADAVB will highlight the code for member information once it becomes available.