Investigation into delay and procedural safeguards for practitioners who are subject to immediate action

About the investigation

In June 2024, the National Health Practitioner Ombudsman commenced an own motion investigation into delay and procedural safeguards for practitioners who are subject to immediate action.

The Ombudsman’s routine complaint monitoring activities found that practitioners had increasingly raised issues with her office about immediate action being taken. In 2023–24 the office recorded 84 issues related to immediate action being taken across complaints about the notifications process, compared to 51 issues in 2022–23, 45 issues in 2021–22 and 24 issues in 2020–21.

Health practitioner complainants have raised a range of concerns with the Ombudsman related to immediate action processes. A common theme is practitioners expressing frustration with the time taken to receive an outcome for the matter that led to immediate action being taken, and a lack of communication about its progress.

Practitioners who have been suspended, or had significant conditions placed on their registration, often raise concerns with the Ombudsman about the impact this has on their career, livelihood and wellbeing.

The Ombudsman’s investigation will focus on how matters involving practitioners subject to immediate action are handled, including if existing policies and procedures enable timely and procedurally fair outcomes.

The Ombudsman is investigating: 

• whether Ahpra’s current policies and procedures allow for the timely: 
  – use of immediate action
  – investigation of health practitioners subject to immediate action.
• whether there are sufficient procedural safeguards for health practitioners subject to immediate action.

The investigation is considering a range of different sources of information, and will invite health consumers, health practitioners and their representative bodies, and other interested individuals and organisations to share their experiences. 

Public consultation is expected to begin in early 2025. Further information about the investigation and public consultation process will be shared on this page when it becomes available.