Regulatory update: AHPRA reports significant increase in notifications and mandatory reporting

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) has released its 2024/2025 annual report, revealing that 13,327 notifications were received about health practitioners nationally.

This is an increase of approximately 19% more than the previous year, with the highest rate of notifications directed against medical practitioners and the most common concern being clinical care.

The annual report provides an overview of the regulation of registered health practitioners, spanning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health practitioners, Chinese medicine practitioners, chiropractors, dental practitioners, medical practitioners, medical radiation practitioners, nurses and midwives, occupational therapists, optometrists, osteopaths, paramedics, pharmacists, physiotherapists, podiatrists and psychologists.

The key findings of the report include the following:

1. Notifications

22,658 notifications were made to AHPRA about 16,209 practitioners. Overall, 1.7% of all registered health practitioners had a notification made about them nationally. 1.4% of closed notifications resulted in the practitioner losing their registration or being disqualified from applying for registration, which was a decrease from the previous year.

2. Common complaints

The most common complaints were clinical care (9,166), communication (4,313), medications (2,632), behaviour (1,850) and record keeping (1,585). This is relatively consistent with the previous year, albeit a steady increase in complaints generally.

3. Immediate action

Immediate action was taken on 554 occasions, representing a significant increase of 34.1% from the previous year, largely due to the increase in notifications received. Of the notifications where immediate action was taken, 10.1% related to concerns regarding boundary violations.

4. Mandatory notifications

1,542 mandatory notifications received, representing 11.6% of all notification received, a 32% increase from the previous year. 40% were about nurses and 32.6% were about medical practitioners. 61% related to a departure from professional standards, 23.9% related to impairment, 9.7% related to sexual misconduct and 5.4% for intoxication.

5. Criminal Complaints and Boundary Violations

474 criminal offence complaints were received, a 13.3% decrease from the previous year. 15 criminal prosecutions were completed, with 61% being in relation to title protection offences followed by advertising offences at 36%.

Similar to the previous year, there was a steady increase in the rates of boundary violations across all professions, including sexual misconduct. AHPRA continue to promote reform in this area, have held a second public consultation to inform the review of criminal history registration standards.

AHPRA are also supporting National Law amendments to permanently publish information of the Register of Practitioners, where a tribunal finds a practitioner to have engaged in professional misconduct involving sexual misconduct.