Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, stylised as Ahpra, is a cross-jurisdictional statutory authority responsible for the regulation of 16 health professions in Australia. While responsibility for regulation sits with 15 independent National Boards (such as the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia), Ahpra provides day-to-day services such as managing registration of and notifications (complaints) against practitioners on behalf of the National Boards.

Ahpra and the National Board's primary purpose is to protect the health and safety of the Australian public through the registration and regulation of health practitioners, including delegating accreditation of education programs and maintaining the National Register of Health Practitioners. Australia was the first country globally to introduce a national registration and accreditation scheme for regulating health practitioners.

At the end of June 2024, there were 920,535 Ahpra-registered health practitioners, representing approximately 3.2% of the Australian population. In the 2023-24 financial year, Ahpra responded to 11,200 notifications about health practitioners, of which 2% resulted in practitioner de-registration and 10.9% resulted in other regulatory action.

Ahpra and the National Boards operate under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law, whereby all state and territories enact similar legislation which recognises regulatory decisions made in other jurisdictions. Queensland acts as the 'host jurisdiction' of the National Law, with Queensland legislation establishing the relevant authorities which are then recognised by all other jurisdictions. National oversight and collaboration for the scheme takes place through several cross-government forums, such as the Australian Health Ministers' Conference and Australian Health Workforce Ministerial Council.

This effectively creates a national scheme, whereby health practitioner registration is managed federally, and regulation decisions apply in all other states and territories regardless of the jurisdiction that a decision was made in. In all states and territories, other than New South Wales and Queensland which have their own state-based regulators, Ahpra also manages notifications (complaints) against health practitioners. The Office of the Health Ombudsman manages complaints for Queensland-based health practitioners, and the Health Professional Councils Authority and 15 profession-specific councils manage complaints in New South Wales.

As of 2022^[update], Ahpra and the National Boards regulate 16 health professions in Australia. Registered members of these professions are called "health practitioners", while other clinicians are more generally called health professionals. 'Unregulated professions' such as sonography are still required to comply with the National Code of Conduct for Health Care Workers, however complaints are managed by state and territory health complaint organisations instead of Ahpra and the National Boards.

On 1 July 2010, the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (NRAS) began for 12 profession groups:

A further 4 professions were added the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme in July 2012: