Australian SLP Spark Alert: Scope of Practice Review Final Report makes national AHPRA registration or accreditation more likely for SLPs

The big picture:

On 5 November 2024, we got our hands on a copy of the long-awaited 219-page Final Report from the Unleashing the Potential of our Health Workforce – Scope of Practice Review into health professional scope of practice in primary care, including for speech pathologists (SLPs).

Context:

SLPs are self-regulated. We operate outside the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (NRAS), which means:
- we don’t have protected title; and
- are not regulated by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), unlike some other allied health professionals, like occupational therapists and physiotherapists.
Under current rules, health professions need to demonstrate that they pose a ‘significant risk of harm to the health and safety of the public’ before they can be regulated under NRAS.
To date, SLPs have not satisfied this test.

Why it matters:

The Independent Reviewers, led by Professor Mark Cormack, made 18 recommendations.
Recommendation 8 is relevant to SLPs. In summary, the Reviewers recommended that the “regulatory model for professions operating outside of the NRAS [including for SLPs] be strengthened and standardised” (p16).

Zoom in:

Recommendation 8 of the Review is that the “Health Ministers’ Meeting (HMM) agree to strengthen and standardise the regulatory model for health professions currently operating outside of the [NRAS] to:

enable the community to access and benefit from all health professionals working to their full scope of practice in multidisciplinary teams in primary care
ensure safety and quality of care delivered by the self-regulated health professions.”

3 options:

The Reviewers recommended that HMM commission a rapid impact analysis of the three reform options:

Option A – targeted legislative amendments to introduce a pathway into NRAS by introducing an additional criterion, such as a ‘public interest’ criterion, to the NRAS criteria for regulatory assessment of the need for statutory registration of a health profession
Option B – amended definition of a ‘health profession’ by amending the National Law to include additional specified professions in the definition of a ‘health profession’
Option C – accreditation by AHPRA (or another body) of relevant professional bodies to perform consistent, quality self-regulation functions for professions which are not registered in the NRAS (page 32, our emphasis).

Driving the proposed change:

Recommendation 8 is designed to:

improve access to care delivered by self-regulated health professions, including SLPs;
increase public confidence in the scope of practice of self-regulated professions; and
improve interprofessional understanding and inclusion of self-regulated health professionals in multidisciplinary team-based care, so that we can work to our full scope of practice (page 33).

Things to watch for:

Health care reform is complex and requires system-wide commitment from state and Federal governments.
We must:
- await the Health Ministers’ response(s) to Recommendation 8 to see whether they support any of its options for SLP regulatory reforms;
- hope that any reforms are coordinated with NDIS registration reforms to avoid unnecessary red tape or compliance costs while enhancing service quality and protecting participants and the public.