WorkSafe Victoria is very involved with moves to improve the professionalism of OHS practitioners in Australia. There is no doubt that improvements are required but the role of a state-based regulator in a non-regulatory system is curious. Surely such changes should be run from a national perspective
Safety professionals often look at the prominence, influence and market share of professional organisations for the doctors or the accountants. In Australia, at the moment, the health care profession’s accreditation/registration process is having a new structure introduced. After a long review process the Australian Health Workforce Ministerial Council identified these areas for change
- Accreditation standards will be developed by the independent accrediting body or the accreditation committee of the board where an external body has not been assigned the function.
- The accrediting body or committee will recommend to the board, in a transparent manner, the courses and training programs it has accredited and that it considers to have met the requirements for registration.
- Ministers today agreed there will be both general and specialist registers available for the professions, including medicine and dentistry, where ministers agree that there is to be specialist registration. Practitioners can be on one or both of these registers, depending on whether their specialist qualification has been recognised under the national scheme.
This third point is an excellent one and so easily applied to the safety profession and the practitioners. “Specialist” and “generalist” seems to reflect the composition of the safety industry in Australia. There are those on the shopfloor or offices who deal with hazards on a daily basis. There are those who research and write about safety. And there are those who are a bit of both. The two category system of accreditation seems simple and practical and readily understood by those outside of the profession.
- Both categories will attract experts in various fields but the categories themselves don’t relate to specific areas of expertise. The Ministerial Council has agreed that there will be a requirement that, for annual renewal of registration, a registrant must demonstrate that they have participated in a continuing professional development program as approved by their national board.
- Assistance will be provided to members of the public who need help to make a complaint.
- The Ministerial Council agreed that national boards will be required to register students in the health profession
- …boards will be appointed by the Ministerial Council with vacancies to be advertised. At least half, but not more than two thirds, of the members must be practitioners and at least two must be persons appointed as community members.
- There will be a new “Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency”
These points deal with matters sorely lacking from many areas of the safety profession – independence, transparency, skills maintenance, a clear and independent complaints procedure, diverse representation and a formal regulatory agency.
To this SafetyAtWorkBlog would add the concept of a Safety Industry Ombudsman for it is always necessary to have someone watching the “watchmen”.
Currently the Australian safety profession is part way through a mish-mash of a process of professionalisation. Surely it would be better to follow the most contemporary of processes being implemented by health care and others. Such a process would take some time and require support from the various disciplines of safety and the government. More importantly, it may require “vision” but during this time of substantial change in OHS legislation and regulatory structure, it is surely the right time to bring in long-term structural change to a profession that would benefit business and the public very well indeed.