The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has signed an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) to establish a single national registration and accreditation scheme for healthcare professionals, including medical practitioners.
AMC President, Dr Joanna Flynn, said she looked forward to working with state and federal governments to develop the detail that will ensure the new national system is effective.
"The AMC supports reforms aimed at facilitating the provision of high quality medical education and training and rigorous and responsive assessment of international medical graduates," Dr Flynn said.
"While the AMC is not specifically mentioned in the COAG communiqué, as the existing accreditation body for medical education, we believe the AMC is well placed to meet these challenges in the future. We will work with the relevant agencies to ensure the full value of the AMC’s expertise and experience is realised in any future scheme," Dr Flynn said.
"The general principles to underpin the scheme have now been agreed. We will now work energetically with governments to ensure the detail that supports the new system is workable and sensitive to the many complexities in healthcare accreditation and assessment," Dr Flynn said.
She said the COAG reform program provided an important opportunity to consolidate advances that have been made in medical education in Australia and noted that the timetable for implementation from July 2010 was ambitious.
"There will be complex challenges in the months ahead, but with good-will and commitment to agreed principles, sensible solutions should be able to be achieved," she said.
