November 2024

Connections

Issue 41 - November 2024

From the Chair
Priority news
Board news
Regulation at work
- Latest tribunal and court summaries
What’s new?
Keep in touch with the Board

From the Chair

Rachel Phillips

We are fast approaching the beginning of the 2025 registration cycle and 15 years of national health practitioner regulation has created a rich understanding of psychologist workforce supply.

For example, ABS and Ahpra statistics show there was a 4.1 per cent increase in psychology registrants over the last year, providing the community with 172 psychologists per 100,000 head of population. Nearly 30 per cent of psychologists with general registration are also approved supervisors, providing 1.6 supervisors for every provisional psychologist.

While we look ahead to 2025, there are still things that need to be completed this year – including registration renewal, which is due by 30 November 2024. Find out more on renewal and much more in the newsletter below.

Rachel Phillips
Chair, Psychology Board of Australia

Priority news

4+2 interns: all requirements to be completed by 30 June 2027

This is a reminder to all 4+2 interns and supervisors to be aware of the key 4+2 retirement dates and to keep working towards completing your requirements before the retirement deadline.

Once the 4+2 internship pathway to general registration is retired, we cannot accept applications for general registration via this pathway; it is a hard deadline.

The last day that a person who has completed the 4+2 internship program can apply for general registration is 30 June 2027. This means that you now have two and a half years remaining to complete your internship, pass the national psychology exam, and apply for general registration.

When the last cohort of interns was accepted into the 4+2 internship in June 2022, there were 3,370 interns in this pathway. Our current statistics show that over 1,954 of you have already finished. Congratulations! However, there are still around 1,400 interns who need to complete their requirements before this pathway is retired.

How to finish your requirements on time

We encourage you to talk with your supervisor to develop a plan so that you will safely finish your requirements well ahead of time.

To help you make progress meeting your requirements, please be aware of the following:

Sit the exam as soon as you are ready and avoid leaving sitting the exam until the last minute. The exam dates are published on our website. Some exam dates get booked out, and some interns will need to sit the exam more than once to pass it, so planning ahead will help you finish on time.
Ensure you have Board approval if you want to change your work role, add a work role, or change your principal supervisor during your internship. Only those work roles that have been approved by the Board can count towards your internship hours. If you do not submit an updated internship program plan (the SPPR-76 form) within 28 days of the change, the Board may not recognise the period of practice until the new internship plan is lodged. Submitting this form on time will ensure that your work hours count towards your internship and help you finish on time.
If you are completing your internship part-time, or have taken extended leave, remember that you have a maximum of five years total to complete the requirements. It is important to work closely with your supervisor and complete your internship in a timely manner that meets the retirement deadline.
Be mindful to monitor when your registration is due to expire and ensure that you submit a renewal application (or an application for provisional registration after three years if you have already renewed twice). Since entry into the 4+2 pathway closed in June 2022, if you do not renew on time and drop off the register, re-entering this pathway takes time, and is not guaranteed.

Further information about the retirement of the 4+2 internship pathway can be found on the Board’s 4+2 internship webpage.

What 4+2 and 5+1 interns should know about the updated competencies

The Board has recently updated the competencies required for general registration. An advance copy of the Professional competencies for psychology is now available on our website. The competencies will come into effect on 1 December 2025, giving provisional psychologists over 12 months to prepare.

The updated general registration competencies will be included in the national psychology exam from January 2026. Any exams undertaken before this time will assess the current competencies. If you plan to sit the exam in 2026, now is the time to start including the updated general registration competencies into your exam study plan.

For more information on the transition to our updated competencies and what you need to do, please see our Fact sheets and FAQs. We encourage you to talk with your supervisor to develop a plan to help you to transition to the updated competencies. We have developed a self-assessment tool to help you transition.

The Guidelines for the 4+2 internship have been updated to include the updated competencies. While they do not come into effect until 1 December 2025, we encourage 4+2 interns to transition to using these guidelines now. Both the current and the new guidelines are available on the Board's website under Codes, guidelines and policies.

We will be consulting on updating the Guidelines for the 5+1 internship and the Guidelines for the national psychology exam to include the new competencies soon. We encourage all interns, exam candidates and their supervisors to familarise themselves with these consultations and with the updated competencies.

What psychologists should know about the updated competencies

The Board has recently updated the competencies required for general registration. An advance copy of the Professional competencies for psychology is now available on our website. The competencies will come into effect on 1 December 2025, giving psychologists and provisional psychologists over 12 months to prepare.

If you currently hold general registration, the updated competencies will not affect your general registration as a psychologist. Practitioners who currently hold general registration will remain registered when the updated competencies come into effect.

Psychologists will need to become familiar with the Professional competencies for psychology including the enhancements to:

Competency 3: Exercises professional reflexivity, purposeful and deliberate practice, and self-care.
Competency 7: Demonstrates a health equity and human rights approach when working with people from diverse groups.
Competency 8: Demonstrates a health equity and human rights approach when working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, families, and communities.

Any continuing professional development (CPD) you need to do to meet, refresh, extend or improve your knowledge and skills can be done as part of the 30 hours of CPD that all psychologists complete each year to maintain registration.

Instead of self-assessing against the current competencies when developing your CPD learning plan each year, you will self-assess against the updated competencies as relevant to your scope of practice.
We have developed Fact sheets and FAQs and a self-assessment tool to help you transition to the updated competencies.

Psychologists are already familiar with the CPD requirements and how to engage in supervision and learning to ensure you are a safe and effective practitioner. You can apply these same learning processes to ensure you meet the updated competencies.

Board news

Code of conduct update

We have been analysing the detailed and considered feedback from our public consultation on updating the code of conduct for psychologists. Thank you to all participants for the high level of engagement and interest in this review of our regulatory code.

We are pleased to announce that the review is in its final stages, with some exciting updates. In November 2024, we will be publishing a public consultation report which summarises the feedback, our analysis and how the feedback has been used to inform our review. We were encouraged by the support from a clear majority of stakeholders to progress with updating our regulatory code of conduct.

We took the time to carefully consider feedback and suggestions on refining the draft code, including extensive consultation with our expert group and regulatory stakeholders. We have made significant progress in making relevant changes to the draft code and are currently on track to publish an advance copy of the Code of conduct for psychologists by 1 December 2024. The new code of conduct will come into effect on 1 December 2025.

We will keep you updated on the latest developments on the code through our website and other media items in the upcoming months.

New or renew – now is the time

Registration renewal for general and non-practising psychologists is now open. Make sure to renew your registration by 30 November 2024 to avoid paying a late fee.

If you don’t renew before 31 December 2024, your registration will lapse, you’ll be removed from the register of practitioners, and you won’t be able to use the protected title, psychologist.

Provisional registration is also open to students who have completed their fourth year of psychology study and been accepted into a fifth-year degree or higher degree pathway.

Remember, you must have provisional registration with the Psychology Board of Australia before you can start psychology practice in your program.

Psychology national committee vacancies

The Board delegates responsibility for making registration and notification decisions about individual psychologists to national committees. We encourage interested practitioners to apply for vacancies on the following committees:

Psychology Notifications and Compliance Committee
Psychology Notifications Committee: Assessment
Psychology Immediate Action Committee.

To be eligible for appointment as a practitioner member, you must hold current registration as a psychologist. Practitioners whose principal place of practice is New South Wales are only eligible for appointment to the Psychology Registration and Compliance Committee, due to co-regulatory arrangements.

The National Scheme is committed to increasing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ leadership and voices. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are warmly encouraged to apply, as are people from rural or regional areas.

If you are considering applying for a vacancy, we strongly encourage you to read the information provided on the Committee member recruitment page, which provides further detail about the roles, time commitment, eligibility requirements and the application process. You can also lodge your application on this page.

Applications open 16 November 2024, and close on 29 December 2024.

Latest workforce data released

The Board’s latest quarterly registration data report covers the period to 30 September 2024. At this date, there were 48,370 registered psychologists, including 39,311 with general registration, 7,238 with provisional registration and 1,821 with non-practising registration.

There were 382 practitioners who identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, or 0.8 per cent of the profession.

For further data breakdowns by division, age, gender and principal place of practice, visit the Board’s Statistics page to read the report.

Regulation at work

Latest tribunal and court summaries

We publish court and tribunal summaries for their educational value to the profession. Here are the latest cases.

Provisional psychologist reprimanded for professional misconduct, breaching professional boundaries

A Queensland provisional psychologist has been reprimanded for breaching professional boundaries with a patient, and failing to maintain adequate treatment records, while practising at an adult male prison.

What’s new?

Applying your code of conduct to evolving technologies – AI in healthcare

Are you using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in your practice?

AI is rapidly becoming integrated into everyday healthcare and has the potential to transform and support new and innovative ways of working. So how do you ensure when using these new technologies that you maintain the continued high standard of care expected by your patients and clients?

Ahpra and National Boards support the safe use of AI in healthcare, recognising the significant potential to improve health outcomes and create a more person-centred health system.

While the potential of AI to improve diagnostics and disease detection has been reported for some time, recent commentary has focused on the benefits for health practitioners for improved care and patient satisfaction, including reducing administrative burdens and health practitioner burnout.

As new tools emerge, so do the unique practical and ethical issues associated with its use in a healthcare setting. Ahpra and the National Boards have developed principles for practitioners to consider when using or looking to integrate AI into their practice. These principles translate existing obligations in practitioner codes of conduct and remind practitioners to consider these responsibilities when assessing the appropriate use of AI.

Specific professional obligations to consider include accountability, an appropriate understanding of the tool, transparency of its use, informed consent, and ethical and legal issues. Read Meeting your professional obligations when using AI in healthcare and its supporting case studies on the Ahpra website to learn more about what safe and effective use of AI should look like.

Demystifying the notifications process: How will Ahpra manage a notification about my health?

This is the second in a series of articles aiming to demystify the notifications process.

We know that having a notification made about you can be stressful. Especially if it’s about your health, mental health or problems with drugs and alcohol use.

Ahpra manages health-related notifications in a way that aims to make the process clear and easy. You will be assigned a case officer from our Health Management Team, who will keep you up to date on the progress of your notification and can advise you about the support services that are available to you.

The team is staffed by people who are committed to ensuring that they understand you as an individual and the demands of clinical practice and healthcare settings.

The aim, if it is safe to do so, is to keep you engaged in work at a level you choose during the investigation process.

National Prescribing Competencies Framework review

Ahpra has been contracted by the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care (the Department) to review the Prescribing Competencies Framework – Embedding quality use of medicines into practice, second edition (the framework).

The review aims to ensure the framework supports Quality Use of Medicines and that:

it remains fit for purpose, contemporary, efficient, accurate and reflects current and emerging trends in education and multi-profession practices, and
it continues to describe competencies required to contribute to safe and person-centred prescribing.

The framework was originally developed and hosted by NPS MedicineWise. Published in April 2021, it describes the competencies and expectations for appropriate, safe and effective prescribing across relevant health professions.

Ahpra will be conducting targeted and public consultations in the next 12 months as part of the review. The final updated version of the framework will be submitted to the Department for approval before publication.

While the framework will be hosted on the Ahpra website, the Department will continue to own the document as part of the Quality Use of Diagnostics, Therapeutics and Pathology Program.

Read more about the review of the framework on the Ahpra website.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioner registration reaches exciting milestone

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioners registered with Ahpra hit 1,000 for the first time in September.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioners are a unique profession founded on traditional values, complemented by modern medicine. They are clinical and cultural experts who build trust, practise cultural safety and bring an understanding which strengthens health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

They work autonomously or as part of a multidisciplinary team, providing a broad range of expertise in both primary and tertiary healthcare, from administering and supplying medications, to acute and chronic disease management and advocating for patients.

Their aim is to empower First Nations families and communities to make them feel welcome, safe and comfortable when using health services and to make self-determined decisions about their health and wellbeing. The profession, while small in number, is critical to ‘closing the gap’ by removing disparities in healthcare.

Ahpra congratulates the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practice Board of Australia (ATSIHPBA) for ensuring practitioners are suitably trained, qualified and safe to practise, and for working collectively and collaboratively with the National Scheme and stakeholders to eliminate racism in healthcare.

Keep in touch with the Board

Visit the Psychology Board website for information on the National Scheme and for the mandatory registration standards, codes, guidelines, policies and fact sheets.
Lodge an enquiry form via the website by following the Contact us link on the bottom of every page.
For registration enquiries call 1300 419 495 (from within Australia) or +61 3 9125 3010 (for overseas callers).
Address mail correspondence to: Rachel Phillips, Chair, Psychology Board of Australia, GPO Box 9958 Melbourne VIC 3001.