Ensuring Dignity and Non-Discrimination CPD course for Health Practitioners facing an Ahpra notification, complaint or allegation

Yes, for both.

For CPD: Every National Board asks for CPD relevant to your practice, and you choose it. For example: 20 hours a year for nurses, midwives, physiotherapists, optometrists and chiropractors; 25 hours a year for osteopaths; 20 hours plus 10 hours of peer consultation a year for psychologists; 40 CPD credits a year for pharmacists; 60 hours over three years for dental practitioners; and 50 hours a year for doctors. This course gives 2 hours and a dated certificate to record towards your Board’s standard.

For a complaint, notification or investigation: Ahpra says “We consider any steps taken by you or your workplace to strengthen your practice.” Its own website gives an example: a practitioner “undertook self-directed learning in relation to clinical record keeping”. The Board then took no further action, because the practitioner had already taken appropriate steps to fix the concern. A course on the concern, together with your written reflection, can be that kind of step. You choose it, and your Board weighs it with everything else. In New South Wales, the Health Professional Councils say they review your reflection on what happened, and “any steps you’ve taken since the incident to prevent similar issues.”

Sources: Ahpra, What to expect; Ahpra, Possible outcomes; Health Professional Councils Authority (NSW), A complaint has been made about me.

Your own part, first, and then the episode examined. What you said and did, what you decided and offered, how long you spent and who was present — read against the record and the other accounts; whether any of it would have been different for another patient or colleague; the effect on the person, in their terms; the clause named from your own Board’s code (1.3, 2.2, 3.1 or 5.3 in the shared Code); and what has changed, with dates. A statement that you are not prejudiced, or a list of the people you have cared for, does not answer the concern.

Yes — before anything is written to Ahpra, the Board, a panel, a tribunal, your employer or a health complaints body. Your indemnity insurer or defence organisation, your union or professional association, or a lawyer should read a response before it goes, and before you contact anyone involved in the complaint about it. Since 1 December 2025 retaliating against a person who makes a notification has been an offence under the National Law (in South Australia, once the regulation is proclaimed). Nothing on this page is legal advice, and no course determines the outcome of a notification.

After an assessment or an investigation the Board may take no further action, caution you, accept an undertaking or impose conditions on your registration (section 178), refer you to a panel (which can impose conditions, caution or reprimand you), or refer the most serious matters to a tribunal (section 193), which can reprimand, impose conditions, fine, suspend, cancel registration and disqualify (section 196). Clause 5.3 of the shared Code names imposing conditions or accepting an undertaking as the kind of regulatory action open to the Board where discrimination, bullying and harassment affect public safety.

In New South Wales, not Ahpra: your profession’s Council of NSW and the Health Care Complaints Commission manage conduct, health and performance matters between them, and Ahpra does not investigate registered practitioners there. In Queensland every complaint goes first to the Office of the Health Ombudsman, which decides what it keeps and what it refers on to Ahpra and the Board. A complaint to an anti-discrimination body or the Australian Human Rights Commission is a separate process from the one about your registration.

More than the law alone. The shared Code defines discrimination as a person or group being “treated less favourably than another person or group because of their background or certain personal characteristics”. Direct discrimination is less favourable treatment because of the attribute; indirect discrimination is a rule or practice applied to everyone that disadvantages people with an attribute and is not reasonable. The code then goes wider than the Acts: clause 1.3(b) covers prejudicing care because of a patient’s behaviour or mental health status, and 3.1(d) names political beliefs among the assumptions to challenge.

Because the question is not what you believe; it is what happened and the effect it had. The codes assume that bias can shape decisions without your intending it — clause 2.2 of the shared Code asks you to acknowledge and address your own biases, assumptions, stereotypes and prejudices. A response built on denying prejudice answers a question nobody asked. What a panel needs is the episode examined, the comparison with how another patient would have been treated, and evidence that something has changed.

Yes. Clause 5.3(d) of the shared Code asks you to “do or say something about discrimination, bullying or harassment by others when you see it and report it when appropriate”, 5.3(f) to escalate if an appropriate response does not occur, and 5.3(g) to refer concerns to the Board or Ahpra where there is ongoing or serious risk, in addition to mandatory reporting. Good medical practice 5.4.5 says the same for doctors. Doing nothing is a position the Board can examine.

The National Scheme definition begins: “Cultural safety is determined by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals, families and communities.” Culturally safe practice is described as the ongoing critical reflection of a practitioner’s knowledge, skills, attitudes, practising behaviours and power differentials in delivering safe, accessible and responsive healthcare free of racism. Clause 3.1(a) of the shared Code applies the same idea to all communities: only the patient and/or their family can determine whether care was culturally safe and respectful — which is why a response that argues the point with the patient does not help.

The bias itself is not what the Board examines; the decisions it shaped are. Clause 2.2(b) of the shared Code asks you to acknowledge and address your own biases, and 1.3 asks for decisions about access to care that are free from bias and discrimination. Where a pattern shows — symptoms put down to anxiety or weight, a slower referral, less explanation — the remediation is a review of your own decisions for that pattern, changes in how you assess and offer options, and the same review repeated after an interval.

It can be, particularly where the person felt they were treated differently from others. Clause 1.3(a) asks you to treat patients with respect at all times, 4.1(a) to be courteous, respectful, compassionate and honest, and 5.1 to behave professionally and courteously towards colleagues, including on social media. The Board is not judging personality; it is asking whether someone received less respect, less explanation or worse care than another person would have. Showing that you understand how it was experienced, and what you have changed, is what helps.

You can decline to take part yourself; you cannot let the objection deny the patient care. Clause 1.3(f) of the shared Code asks you to “not allow your moral or religious views or conscientious objection to deny patients access to healthcare”, to inform the patient respectfully, where relevant, along with your employer and colleagues, and to make sure the patient has other care options. Good medical practice 3.4.6 and 3.4.7 say the same for doctors. Some states also require referral by law for particular services.

With specific, dated evidence. A documented review of the episode; a check of your own recent decisions for the same pattern, repeated after an interval; structured feedback from colleagues and, where appropriate, from patients; changes to how you take a history, offer options, book interpreters and examine; supervision or mentoring with written reports; and a development plan that names behaviours rather than intentions. Sections 7 and 8 of the course are built around producing that evidence.

The course is 2 CPD hours, self-paced, with twelve months’ access from purchase. The certificate is issued on completion, dated, with the course title and the CPD hours, for a response, a portfolio or your CPD record.