An important component of a dental professional indemnity insurance product is assisting a dentist with a regulatory matter they may face.
An annual report (found here) that summarises data relating to the dental profession in Australia, which have been drawn from the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) and the National Boards’ 2017/18 annual report offers a unique insight into the regulatory landscape.
Setting standards that all registered dental practitioners must meet and managing risk to patients is an ongoing priority for the Dental Board Of Australia (the Board). The Board sets policy and standards that define acceptable practice and makes decisions that shape the requirements of dental practitioners in Australia. State and territory committees make decisions that affect the lives of individual dental practitioners and patients in Australia.
Most dental practitioners in Australia provide high-quality care to their patients and practise at a level well above the
minimum safe standards required by the Board. In most cases, patients can be confident that the trust they place in
their dental practitioners is well founded. It is when a registered dental practitioner does not meet accepted standards that regulation matters most. At these times, the Board and AHPRA work together to assess and decide what, if anything, needs to be done to manage risk and keep patients safe.
In 2017/18, AHPRA audited 7,193 practitioners across all 15 regulated health professions. For all audits initiated and completed this year, 97.3% of dental practitioners were found to be in compliance with the registration standards being audited.
Notifications, monitoring and offences :
- 539 notifications (complaints or concerns) were lodged with AHPRA about dental practitioners in 2017/18
- 3.7% of all registered dental practitioners were the subject of a notification (compared with 1.6% of all registered health practitioners).
- Immediate action was taken 10 times; 4 resulted in suspension of a dental practitioner’s registration while a notification was investigated.
- 31 mandatory notifications were lodged with AHPRA about dental practitioners.
- 554 notifications were closed.
- 123 cases were being monitored by AHPRA for compliance with restrictions on their registration as at 30 June 2018.
- 55 statutory offence complaints were made about the profession – three-quarters related to title and practice protection.
