By 30 June 2017, there were 1,984 registered Chinese medicine practitioners with a principal place of practice in New South Wales (an increase of 1.6% on the previous year).
During the twelve months' period from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2017, the Chinese Medicine Council received 25 new complaints about practitioners. Another way of looking at that figure, is to say that a complaint was made about one in every 80 practitioners.
16 of those complaints related to the practitioners’ conduct and 9 related to the standard of skill, judgement and care exercised by those practitioners.
During the year, the Council managed a total of 44 complaints, with 19 carried over from the previous year. The Council conducted 11 hearings and assessments, which included 4 face to face counselling sessions. The Council issued 2 cautions/reprimands and imposed conditions on the registration of 3 practitioners as a means of protecting public health and safety. 13 of the 44 matters remained open and unresolved at the end of the year.
For more details, see our 2016/17 Annual Report.
Practitioners have a duty to make the care of patients or clients their primary concern. To assist practitioners to practise safely and effectively, the Chinese Medicine Board of Australia has published various codes and guidelines. Included amongst the publications available for viewing or downloading from the Board’s website are the following:
- Code of Conduct
- Guidelines for advertising regulated health services
- Guidelines for safe practice of Chinese herbal medicine
- Infection prevention and control guidelines for acupuncture practice
- Patient health records guidelines
- Social media policy
Click on the following link to view the Board’s publications: http://www.chinesemedicineboard.gov.au/Codes-Guidelines/Code-of-conduct.aspx
(Click here to read this article in Chinese)