On 26 March 2008 the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) signed an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) for a National Registration and Accreditation Scheme for the Health Professions, which will commence on 1 July 2010. It was agreed to establish a single national registration and accreditation scheme for health professionals, beginning with the nine professions currently registered in all jurisdictions. That is, chiropractic, dental care (dentists, dental hygienists, dental prosthetists and dental therapists), medicine, nursing and midwifery, optometry, osteopathy, pharmacy, physiotherapy, and psychology.

It was noted that podiatry is a special case because the only jurisdiction in which podiatrists are not currently registered is the Northern Territory, and accordingly it should automatically be included in the national registration scheme as soon as practicable post 1 July 2010. It has since been decided that the podiatry profession will be involved in the implementation phase of the National Scheme, and will be included from 1 July 2010 together with the other 9 professions The objectives of the national scheme, to be set out in the legislation, are to:

(a)   provide for the protection of the public by ensuring that only practitioners who are suitably trained and qualified to practise in a competent and ethical manner are registered;

(b)   facilitate workforce mobility across Australia and reduce red tape for practitioners;

(c)   facilitate the provision of high quality education and training and rigorous and responsive assessment of overseas-trained practitioners;

(d)   have regard to the public interest in promoting access to health services; and

(e)   have regard to the need to enable the continuous development of a flexible, responsive and sustainable Australian health workforce and enable innovation in education and service delivery.

The IGA can be viewed at www.coag.gov.au under “COAG Meeting Outcomes”.