Registration of Health Professionals

Applicants without legal qualifications should note that subjects are offered in the discipline of law at an advanced graduate level. While every effort will be made to meet the needs of students trained in other fields, concessions will not be made in the general level of instruction or assessment. Most subjects assume the knowledge usually acquired in a degree in law (LLB, JD or equivalent). Applicants should note that admission to some subjects in the Melbourne Law Masters will be dependent upon the individual applicant’s educational background and professional experience.

The Melbourne Law Masters welcomes applications from students with disabilities. The inherent academic requirements for study in the Melbourne Law Masters are:

• The ability to attend a minimum of 75% of classes and actively engage in the analysis and critique of complex materials and debate;
• The ability to read, analyse and comprehend complex written legal materials and complex interdisciplinary materials;
• The ability to clearly and independently communicate in writing a knowledge and application of legal principles and interdisciplinary materials and to critically evaluate these;
• The ability to clearly and independently communicate orally a knowledge and application of legal principles and interdisciplinary materials and critically evaluate these;
• The ability to work independently and as a part of a group;
• The ability to present orally and in writing legal analysis to a professional standard.

Students who feel their disability will inhibit them from meeting these inherent academic requirements are encouraged to contact the Disability Liaison Unit: www.services.unimelb.edu.au/disability/

Over the past few years there have been profound changes in the regulation of the health professions. Fourteen major professions are now included in a new national scheme. All of the registered professions are covered by the same legislation for accreditation, registration and the monitoring of practice to ensure that standards are maintained to protect the public. More than half a million health professionals are registered under the national scheme and, when it was adopted in July 2010, 66 Acts of parliament were repealed and about 85 health professional boards were abolished. This subject will provide an understanding as to how the new scheme has centralised the disciplinary process, now that the State and Territory registration bodies are acting under delegated authority from the federal board. It will also provide an understanding of how health practitioners, their employers and educators have a mandatory obligation to report ‘notifiable conduct’ of practitioners to the national regulator, and how health care consumers (patients) lodge a ‘notification’ about the practice of a health professional, rather than a ‘complaint.’

Principal topics will include:

• Legal requirements for accreditation, registration and monitoring of practice of health professionals in Australia
• The process and grounds for disciplinary action
• An examination of specific disciplinary proceedings against health professionals
• A comparison of disciplinary proceedings and other legal action against health professionals
• An evaluation of the new registration scheme and its operation to date.

A student who has successfully completed this subject should:

• Understand the legal requirements for accreditation, registration, and the monitoring of practice of health professionals in Australia.
• Be aware of the criticism of the new registration scheme and the way it has been implemented in practice; together with the responses that may be made to critics of the new scheme.
• Understand the new disciplinary process in relation to health professionals and how it differs from the earlier process for members of different health professions.
• Be able to advise patients and others about the process for lodging notifications about a health professional’s practice.
• Be able to advise health professionals on how to respond to notifications relating to their practice.
• Have examined a range of law reports relating to disciplinary proceedings against health professionals in order to appreciate the underlying principles relating to the imposition of disciplinary penalties.

• Class presentation (10%)
• 2,000 word presentation paper (20%) (8 December)
• 7,000 word research paper (70%) (18 February 2015) on a topic approved by the subject coordinator

Core subject materials will be provided free of charge to all students. Some subjects require further texts to be purchased. Details regarding any prescribed texts will be provided prior to the commencement of the subject.

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.