Revised registration standards take effect 1 December 2019

02 Dec 2019

The Chinese Medicine Board of Australia’s (the Board) revised registration standards came into effect on 1 December 2019.

The following revised registration standards¹ apply from 1 December 2019:

• Recency of practice
• Professional indemnity insurance arrangements, and
• Continuing professional development.

The revised registration standards were published on 31 July 2019 to give practitioners time to understand the revised requirements. You should make sure you have read and understand the revised registration standards and know what you need to do to meet them. Some of the main changes are outlined below and you can read the registration standards in full on the Registration Standards page of the Board’s website.

Every time you renew your registration you must declare you meet Recency of Practice, Professional indemnity insurance arrangements and Continuing professional development registration standards.

Recency of practice (RoP)

The revised registration standard requires you to have practised 450 hours over the last three years, or 150 hours over the last year. If you are registered in more than one division of the register you must include some practice relevant to each of the divisions in which you are registered.

You will also need to submit a professional development plan to the Board for approval if you are making a substantial change to the scope of your practice, for example from an administrative role to providing clinical care.

Professional indemnity insurance arrangements (PII)

The revised registration standard has been made easier to read and understand. To meet the registration standard, you need to have appropriate insurance. The Board is no longer specifying a minimum amount of cover. You must provide accurate information about your practice to your insurance broker, provider or indemnifier so that they can evaluate your practice and ensure you have an appropriate amount of cover for all aspects of your practice.

It needs to be appropriate to the nature, context and risks of your individual practice. The appropriate amount for you may depend on a combination of factors, including, for example:

• the practice area or areas you work in, including divisions of the register
• the patients you work with, and
• the risks involved with your particular practices.

Continuing professional development (CPD)

The revised registration standard still requires you to do 20 hours of CPD each year and 4 of those hours must still relate to professional issues.

A new requirement is that five hours must be interactive CPD activities. Interactive means learning that involves two-way flow of information and occurs with other practitioners, such as face-to-face or interactive online education.

Resources about the revised standards

You can find more information about the revised CPD registration standard in the CPD guidelines on the Codes and Guidelines webpage.

The Board will be publishing more information about the other revised registration standards in the FAQ section on the Codes and Guidelines webpage in coming weeks.

¹Registration standards define the requirements that applicants and registrants in the regulated professions need to meet to be registered.