Medical colleges warn patients at risk by plan for overseas doctors

A plan to fast-track the recruitment of specialist international doctors into Australia — to help ease skills shortages, especially in rural areas — is being questioned by top medical colleges, who are calling for a slowdown.

Experts warn patients will be put at risk if the federal government does not pause a plan to fast-track the registration of specialist international medical graduates into Australia.

Two leading medical colleges are calling for the slowing down of the planned expedited pathway, due to start later this month, saying there needs to be more clarity about how it will work to ensure patient safety and care.

The proposal by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) will fast-track specialists doctors from the UK and Ireland.

It follows the Kruk Review, commissioned by national cabinet, to simplify the registration process for specialist international medical graduates (SIMGs) to help ease skills shortages in health professions, particularly in rural areas.

The national plan will see the assessment of the SIMGs managed through Ahpra and not the specialist medical colleges.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Dr Nicole Higgins:

The Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) say they were blindsided by the move to exclude them from accreditation processes.

“From our perspective, we are the experts who are good at what we do,” ANZCA president Professor David Story said.

“We are as efficient as the government wants, but for some reason there is this big push by the end of the year for what we do to be taken over by Ahpra who are not experts in assessing whether anaesthetists are suitable for practice,” he said.

Prof Story said the best solution would be for Ahpra to support the colleges, rather than the other way around, and to pause the rollout to allow for greater clarity.

RACGP president Dr Nicole Higgins said the expertise of the colleges also ensured Australian patients a “safety net”

President of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists Professor David Story.

“Even though most of the time most of these doctors will deliver great care to the community, what about those that we catch with our safety net because we dig deeper and do all that extra checking?” she said.

In a statement Ahpra said it, along with the Medical Board of Australia, was asked by national cabinet and health ministers to establish an expedited registration pathway for SIMGs, prioritising general practice, anaesthesia, psychiatry and obstetrics and gynaecology in the first tranche.

Prof Story says the Kruk Review did not recommend that Ahpra manage the accreditation process.

“ANZCA is fundamentally concerned about patient safety and quality of care under the proposal,” he said. “It is also about the wellbeing of the international doctors coming into Australia, particularly those looking to work in regional areas, that they are adequately supervised and supported.”

Dr Higgins said more evaluation was needed.

“At the moment, we don’t know how this will work. We haven’t been told, and that is scary,” she said.

Medical colleges are concerned about the new plan that will see specialists international medical graduates fast-tracked into Australia.

We want to know that we’re getting the right doctors into the right places to be able to practice the right type of medicine.

“This is about patient safety and people need to know who’s treating them, what skills they’ve got and that we’ve got appropriate supervision to ensure safety.”

Ahpra said in the statement that decisions about the registration of medical practitioners were made by the Medical Board of Australia comprising medical practitioners and community members.

“We are looking at expediting the pathway for a small cohort of highly qualified specialist medical practitioners from comparable health systems, such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Ireland,” a spokesman said.

“These same highly qualified practitioners already become registered following assessment through the current college system, due to the quality of their training and professional credentials. However, the college assessment process can take a long time. Meanwhile, Australian patients wait.”

Prof Story said the colleges had been working to speed up the process, but that some delays were also caused by immigration and Ahpra.

Dr Higgins said the RACGP wanted confirmation of the support that would be provided to overseas GPs coming into Australia.

“Because often they are the most vulnerable doctors going to the most vulnerable communities who need the most support and that wraparound support for the doctor and their family is what makes that transition so much easier,” she said. “It also encourages them to stay in that community.”

She said it needed to be more than a tick list.

The Ahpra spokesman said it had met with most of the colleges and participated regularly in meetings with the Council of Presidents of Medical Colleges.