The Senate has been dissolved to allow for the forthcoming federal election. As part of the finalisation of Senate business, the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee handed down it’s report into the ‘Establishment of a national registration system for Australian paramedics to improve and ensure patient and community safety’. The committee recommended:
- That the paramedic profession be nationally registered and accredited throughout Australia, and that such a scheme give consideration to ‘grandparenting’ arrangements for current paramedics, while ensuring that they meet the agreed professional standards.
- The establishment of a paramedic board, operating in conjunction with the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (NRAS) and administered by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA); and.
- That all Australian states and territories participate in a national registration and accreditation system for paramedics.
That is, they recommended that the paramedic profession join the other 14 registered health professionals which will bring such things as protection of title, transferable qualifications and the ability of the profession to determine standards of practice through the yet to be established Paramedic Board.
The recommendations of the Committee are not binding, and it has already been noted that the Council of Australian Governments had also recommended national registration (see National Registration for Paramedics – or perhaps not (November 6, 2015)). The important aspect of this recommendation is that it will bring pressure onto NSW, which is the only state currently resisting national registration, to join the scheme and make it truly national. Whether that will happen remains to be seen.
You can download the final report here.
Australian Emergency Law 
How will registration affect the non-emergency sector? Particularly here in Victoria where private companies work within a 2 tier system with Ambulance Victoria attending to medium acuity cases. The system has just had a number of changes which have come into effect today (9th May)
Registration will affect the non-emergency sector to the extent that they want to employ paramedics. If they do they will have to employ registered paramedics. If they don’t need that skill set they will be able to employ other qualified people such as those holding a diploma in non-emergency patient transport. Those people won’t be able to call themselves paramedics. The reality is that I can’t see it having much impact on the non-emergency patient transport sector but there will be a clear distinction between their operators and paramedics.