February 2023

Issue 31 - February 2023

• From the Chair
• Priority news
  • Have your say – understanding the Advertising guidelines
• Board news
  • Be sure to know your professional obligations
  • Latest workforce data released
• Students and graduates
  • Where to start? Try the Code of conduct
• What’s new?
  • Ahpra Board seeks applications
  • How do we prevent trust violation in healthcare?
• National Scheme news
• Want more information?

From the Chair

Welcome to the Board’s first newsletter for 2023! We also welcome new graduates as you begin your chiropractic career and encourage you to watch our Welcome to the chiropractic profession video. Our newsletters keep you up to date with changes to standards and guidelines, opportunities to participate in public consultations, our projects and events. We welcome your feedback.

The Board has commissioned the University of Melbourne to explore chiropractors’ understanding of the current Advertising guidelines. For more information on how you can participate, read below.

Finally, we are continuing our in-person forums in 2023, starting with Melbourne in February for chiropractors in Victoria. Forum locations later this year include Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart, so if you practise there, look out for your invitation from the Board. This is your opportunity to ask questions and meet the Board.

Dr Wayne Minter AM
Chiropractor
Chair, Chiropractic Board of Australia 

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Priority news

Have your say – understanding the Advertising guidelines

Researchers at the University of Melbourne are exploring chiropractors’ understanding of current advertising guidelines and any barriers they face in implementing the guidelines. This research involves completion of a 15-minute online survey. To participate, click here.

Note: This research is being conducted for and is funded by the Chiropractic Board of Australia. Please note that the Board and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) will not be involved in data collection or analysis and they will not have access to any data collected.

This study has been approved by the University of Melbourne’s Human Research Ethics Committee (2022-25290-32951-3).  

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Board news

Be sure to know your professional obligations

Another successful registration renewal period has closed. Thanks to everyone who renewed on time and especially to those who got in early. While renewal is an annual reminder, it’s important to know that under the National Law, you have obligations throughout the year.

In addition to renewing your registration every year, the following professional obligations apply to all registered chiropractors:

• Notify Ahpra of changes to your principal place of practice, name or address within 30 days.
• Meet the Board’s registration standards, codes and guidelines.
• Maintain recency of practice.
• Participate in and record continuing professional development activities.
• Comply with audit requirements to check your renewal declarations.

There are also some obligations that hopefully won’t apply to you, but it’s important to know about them in case they do:

• Make a mandatory notification (required in some limited circumstances).
• Notify Ahpra in writing within seven days if you’re charged with an offence punishable by 12 months’ jail or more or if you have been convicted of, or are the subject of a finding of guilt, for an offence punishable by any term of imprisonment.

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Latest workforce data released

The Board has published its latest quarterly report on the chiropractic workforce, covering 1 October to 31 December 2022. At this date, there were 6,285 registered chiropractors, including 477 with non-practising registration.

For more data, including registration by principal place of practice, age and gender, visit our Statistics page to read the report.

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Students and graduates

Where to start? Try the Code of conduct

As you’ll hear in the Board’s Welcome to the profession video ‘the Board’s role is to protect the public and uphold professional standards for chiropractors’. It does this by setting professional standards and helping you understand and meet those standards.

When you’re just getting started it may seem like there is a lot of information to get your head around. Knowing where to begin can be daunting.

With this in mind, we want to highlight and encourage you to familiarise yourself with the Code of conduct. The code is an important document for chiropractors. It provides guidance about expected standards for practitioner behaviour and conduct. In defining these expectations, it helps to keep the public safe by supporting good patient care and delivery of services.

Download the Code of conduct and read the Resources to help practitioners including helpful FAQs.

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What’s new?

Ahpra Board seeks applications

The governing board for Ahpra has vacancies for members of the community. If you have a passion for safety and quality, and have expertise in health, education, business administration or regulation, then we want to hear from you.

For more information, read the news item on Ahpra’s website. Applications close on 26 February 2023.

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How do we prevent trust violation in healthcare?

Building trust is fundamental to safe healthcare, as is responding effectively when a practitioner breaches that core responsibility to a patient.

In the first Taking care podcast for the year we look at building trust in healthcare, how do we keep it, how can patients be better supported if things go wrong?

International guest Professor Rosalind Searle unpacks the impacts on patients when trust isn’t prioritised. Pointing to examples in Australia, Professor Searle provides a guide for strengthening processes and support mechanisms to boost trust in healthcare.

Our Taking care podcast series covers a wide range of current issues in patient safety and healthcare in conversation with health experts and other people in our community. Listen and subscribe by searching for Taking care in your podcast player (for example Apple Podcasts or Spotify), or listen on our website.

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National Scheme news

Click on the image below to visit our National Scheme newsletter page.