Submission to the National Health Practitioner Ombudsman’s Independent Review into Ahpra’s Framework for identifying and dealing with vexatious notifications

The Australian Psychological Society (APS) welcomed the opportunity to make a submission to the National Health Practitioner Ombudsman’s independent review of Ahpra’s Framework for identifying and dealing with vexatious notifications.

The submission reflects the voice of psychologists’ experience of their interactions with Ahpra when having received a notification that is determined as vexatious in nature. We identified a number of key themes and offered suggestions to improve the process of responding to vexatious notifications, including:

• Reducing the administrative burden on health practitioners as much as possible by allowing different options for information and evidence gathering, and providing practitioners with sufficient time to respond.
• Ensuring that even potentially vexatious notifications are dealt with in a timely fashion with full transparency, a clear timeline, and rapid resolution.
• Working collaboratively with practitioners and peak bodies to establish a standardised process and approach to the investigation of notifications that are potentially vexatious.
• Training for Ahpra staff to ensure a respectful, consistent approach to how vexatious notifications are dealt with and managed, and an understanding of the potentially distressing impact on health practitioners.

View submission