news
news
Regulations revamp
AHPRA and UK health council team up to boost patient safety and professional standards.
Health professionals from Australia and the UK met recently to address the issue of patient safety and health practitioner regulations.
The seminar, held in Melbourne, saw members of the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency( AHPRA) and the Health and Care Professions Council( HCPC) in the UK combine their efforts to protect the public.
‘ Holy grail’ cancer test
High hopes for new blood test that screens for wide range of early-stage cancers.
Australian scientists at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute are among a team of researchers who have developed a blood test that detects cancers before symptoms appear.
The test is yet to hit the market, but AMA president Dr Michael Gannon has
AHPRA chief executive Martin Fletcher said the research collaboration between the duo was the largest of its kind, combining data for over one million registered health practitioners across both countries to help the organisations“ improve regulatory effectiveness, patient safety and professional standards internationally”.
“ We want to translate the research we do into real action that puts patient safety first,” he said.
“ AHPRA and the HCPC are making a shared investment in innovative research on
labelled the recent technology a“ holy grail” for nursing.
“ We’ ve got tests a bit like this for a small number of cancers, but when you see that this test potentially can pick up something like pancreatic cancer – which classically presents at an advanced stage, sometimes when a patient’ s only got months to live – this is potentially very exciting,” he said.
“ In Australia we’ re very lucky – we’ ve got two absolutely world-leading screening important issues such as the effectiveness of our regulatory actions, complaint hotspots across health professions, preventing harm and using behavioural insights in the work that we do to protect the public.”
HCPC chief executive and registrar Marc Seale said the joint research seminar aimed to set a high standard in the health profession.
“ Our focus this week is to engage, collaborate, learn and most of all get inspired,” he said.
“ The issue of patient safety is not confined within national borders, and there are many common challenges across countries.
“ We are very lucky – we already have access to many of the best experts in health practitioner regulation at home, and our work with AHPRA extends our knowledge to what is happening overseas.”
In attendance at the event were international researchers, regulators, accreditation authorities and practitioners, all looking at ways in which research could help shape the regulatory policies, decision-making and compliance activities of AHPRA and the HCPC. ■
programs that detect cancers at an early stage.
“ One of them is the latest incarnation of the Pap smear, for detection of cancer of the cervix, and the other one is the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program.
“ Now, the only reason the government goes to the massive, multimillion-dollar expense with those tests is that they’ re worth it at a population level, and it’ s exciting to think that this blood test might join that suite of tests.”
Gannon said he had high hopes the test would have an elevated level of accuracy for screening cancers, but it would still be subjected to second and third phase trials in Australia and overseas.
“ What we’ ve got to do is when we do have a test, make sure that it reaches every corner of the population,” he said.
“ I would love to see the same emphasis on cancer prevention that we have on cancer screening or cancer treatment.
“ We spend billions of dollars in this country every year on treatment of cancer, and sadly there is still billions of dollars of money lost in premature death due to cancer.
“ We need to spend the time talking about prevention of these various different cancers.” ■
6 | nursingreview. com. au