THE Australian Health Practitioners Regulatory Authority (AHPRA) and the Pharmacy Board of Australia (PBA) have announced the Annual Report for AHPRA and the National Boards for the year to 30 Jun 2017 is now available to view online - ahpra.gov.au.
"The theme of the year was research," explained PBA chair William Kelly.
"On behalf of the Board, AHPRA's Risk-based Regulation Unit completed a study of complaints about pharmacists, which provided an evidence base to better inform the development of regulatory standards for the profession."
The Board also continued its consultation into proposals for revised guidance on the compounding of sterile injectable medicines and funded and participated in the review of the national competency standards framework for pharmacists in Australia 2016, as well as piloting a survey of interns and preceptors to look into issues relevant to the quality of intern training experience.
"The Board proactively engaged the profession and stakeholders to ensure the information and guidance provided is easy to understand, up-to-date and relevant," said Kelly.
"This work included updating website content and revising a guide for oral examination candidates."
Other elements of the report highlight the largest online registration renewal rate ever achieved across all 14 registered health professions.
More than 98.5% of all registered health practitioners renewed online and on time, with 99.1% of pharmacists renewing online.
Pharmacists comprise 4.5% of all health practitioners and the registrant base continues to grow (up 2.2% from 2015/16 to 30,360).
A significant number (373) of notifications were lodged about pharmacists in 2016/17.
This equated to 1.8% of the profession, the report said.
Of the 355 matters closed, 18% resulted in the Board accepting an undertaking or conditions being imposed, 30.1% resulted in a caution or reprimand, 1.7% resulted in suspension or cancellation of registration, and 49.3% resulted in no further action being taken.
Of the 53 statutory offence complaints made about pharmacists in 2016/17 (up from 13 in 2015/16), the majority (40) were about advertising breaches while 13 complaints related to use of a protected title.
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