Open Consultations
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Online Survey - Development of national standards for counsellors and psychotherapists
The Department of Health and Aged Care is developing national standards for counsellors and psychotherapists. The national standards intend to describe the experience, capabilities and behaviours expected of the counselling and psychotherapy professions. This includes education,...
Closes 5 July 2024
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Establishment of a National Aged Care Mandatory Quality Indicator Program for in-home aged care services
The Department of Health and Aged Care (Department) is undertaking an open public consultation on the establishment of a National Aged Care Mandatory Quality Indicator Program (QI Program) for in-home aged care services. The QI Program aims to help people find information about the...
Closes 9 July 2024
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Consultation Draft: Outline of the National Allied Health Workforce Strategy
Australians need better access to allied health care to prevent and manage chronic conditions, and support people with disability, older people, people with mental health issues and children and families. The Australian Government is working with state and territory governments to...
Closes 9 July 2024
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Review of the Australian Sports Commission Act 1989
The Department of Health and Aged Care (the department) has engaged Professor John McMillan AO and Clayton Utz to conduct a review of the Australian Sports Commission Act 1989 (the Act). The aim of the review is to ensure the legislation is fit...
Closes 12 July 2024
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Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) Review Advisory Committee Draft Report for Open Consultation: Post-implementation review of changes to electrocardiogram (ECG) MBS items
The Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) is a list of health professional services (items) that the Australian Government subsidises. MBS items provide patient benefits for a wide range of health services including consultations, diagnostic tests, therapy, and operations. When changes are made to...
Closes 25 July 2024
Closed Consultations
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Request for Revalidated Service proposed changes - Mar 2024
This form is to be completed if you wish to complete a request for a Revalidated Service for a client with the Australian Government Hearing Services Program. Supporting Evidence is now required to be submitted with your request. Below is a checklist of documents you may be...
Closed 1 July 2024
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Victorian RAS Workforce Survey
The Department of Health and Aged Care (Department) has developed this survey to allow Regional Assessment Service (RAS) assessors to identify whether they would like to continue working as RAS assessors if their current employing organisation exits the market. Participation in this...
Closed 30 June 2024
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Hearing Services Program - Provider Information Session Feedback
The program provides information sessions to contracted service providers and industry groups. We welcome feedback to help improve these sessions.
Closed 30 June 2024
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Consultation Paper - Improving the Overseas Student Health Cover Program - May 2024
Overseas Student Health Cover (OSHC) is health insurance specifically for overseas students and their dependents whilst they are in Australia. It includes coverage for medical and hospital care, ambulance services, and some pharmaceutical items. The Department of Health administers the Deed...
Closed 24 June 2024
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Interim First Nations Aged Care Commissioner consultation
Have your say about culturally safe aged care for older First Nations people and the role of the permanent Commissioner. The Interim First Nations Aged Care Commissioner Ms Andrea Kelly wants to hear from older First Nations people, families, communities and stakeholders about: ...
Closed 21 June 2024
We Asked, You Said, We Did
Here are some of the issues we have consulted on and their outcomes. See all outcomes
We asked
The Department of Health and Aged Care, in partnership with the Australian Digital Health Agency, sought feedback to inform implementation of two changes to improve sharing of pathology and diagnostic imaging reports to My Health Record:
- better access: introducing requirements for pathology and diagnostic imaging providers to share reports to My Health Record by default
- faster access: removing the 7-day delay so consumers can see most pathology and diagnostic imaging results as soon as they have been uploaded to My Health Record.
You said
We received 416 submissions from a range of respondents including consumers and carers, healthcare providers and peak bodies.
Submissions have been published where respondents provided consent for this to occur.
We did
We reviewed submissions and prepared a summary report of key themes and feedback. Feedback is informing implementation, noting we will be undertaking further consultation as implementation progresses.
We have also established a Clinical Reference Group to support implementation by providing strategic advice and clinical oversight.
We asked
The Intellectual Disability Capability Framework drafting group asked for feedback about the draft Intellectual Disability Health Capability Framework in an open consultation from 3 -27 October 2023. We asked for feedback about the overall draft framework and asked for specific feedback about the following areas of the draft framework document:
- learning outcomes
- implementation guidelines
- capacity assessment tools
- terms and language.
This was the second consultation for this project (the first open consultation asked for feedback about the core capabilities).
You said
Thirty-three submissions to the open consultation were received from a range of stakeholders including individuals, health services, peak bodies, education providers, First Nations organisations and groups representing and serving those with intellectual disabilities. A breakdown of responses is as follows:
- 9 responses from individuals/consumers
- 17 responses from organisations
- 7 responses from section/teams within an organisation
The results showed that overall, 91% of respondents agreed that the learning outcomes were appropriate, and 67% agreed that the learning outcomes were measurable. In relation to implementation guidelines, 58% of respondents agreed that the implementation guidance for accreditation authorities was appropriate, and 70% of respondents agreed that the implementation guidance for education providers was appropriate. 67% of respondents agreed that the assessment tools were useful, and 85% of respondents agreed that the language used in the framework was appropriate.
Free text comments identified areas for amendments or emphasis in the draft Framework. Main areas that were identified include:
- strengthening guidance around integrating intellectual disability into crowded curricula and accreditation standards.
- the need to provide students with the appropriate placements to prepare them to meet the needs of people with intellectual disability.
- disability awareness training for educators.
- the need to acknowledge self-regulating health professions within the framework.
- suggestions to simplify the capacity assessment tools.
- proposed changes to terminology and areas for emphasis in learning outcomes.
Feedback also identified areas that will be considered in the next phase of the project, including resource development, evaluation strategies and communities of practice. This feedback has been recorded and will be used in the next phase of the project.
We did
All submissions were reviewed, and amendments have been made as appropriate. The following significant changes were made:
- strengthened guidance about how educational institutions and accreditation authorities can integrate intellectual disability into curricula and standards. Flexible implementation options were provided and examples of ways that learning outcomes can be integrated into existing curricula were added.
- emphasised the need for appropriate placements to prepare students to meet the needs of people with intellectual disability and provided alternatives if no intellectual disability specific services.
- emphasised importance of disability awareness training for educators.
- acknowledged self-regulating health professions within the Framework.
- amended capacity assessment tools and made them modifiable, so they could be further revised to suit the needs of each organisation.
- updated terminology and glossary definitions as suggested. For example, diagnostic overshadowing was updated to a more contemporary definition.
- Added a new learning outcome to emphasise the need to limit diagnostic overshadowing. The new learning outcomes is: “Limit diagnostic overshadowing by evaluating when presentations are attributable to health and/or mental health concerns rather than intellectual disability”.
Next steps:
The next stage of the Intellectual Disability Health Curriculum Development Project, led by a team at UNSW Sydney, aims to curate and develop intellectual disability health resources to support the integration of the Framework into accreditation standards and health professional pre-registration education curricula. The project began in June 2023 and will run for two years, with resources released throughout this time. This phase involves significant consultation and co-design with people with intellectual disability, and consultation with key stakeholders including support networks of people with intellectual disability, accreditation authorities, and the higher education sector. The objectives of this next stage are to:
- scope potential barriers and facilitators to implementation in accreditation standards and create a plan to support integration
- curate a list of existing foundational knowledge and teaching resources and provide guidance around their use
- identify and develop additional priority resources and tools to support education providers to implement the Framework. One such tool will support education providers to include people with intellectual disability and their support networks in the design and delivery of curriculum content.
We appreciate all the interest and expertise shared throughout the consultation phase and thank all stakeholders who prepared a submission.
We asked
We asked you for your experiences, views and perspectives of health practitioners working to full scope of practice in primary care.
You said
We received 686 online submissions from people representing a wide range of professions and roles in primary care.
We did
The review analysts will now highlight the trends and key issues form the submissions. Together with the literature review, this will paint a comprehensive picture of the current state of scope of practice in primary care, to inform the next stages of the review.