Podiatry regulation at work: Protecting the public 2017/18

27 Feb 2019

A profession-specific annual report summary that looks into the work of the Podiatry Board of Australia over the year to 30 June 2018 has now been published.

A profession-specific annual report summary that highlights the work of the Podiatry Board of Australia (the Board) over the year to 30 June 2018 has now been published.

The report draws on data from the 2017/18 annual report by AHPRA and the National Boards. This information provides a snapshot of the profession as at 30 June 2018, and includes the number of applications for registration, outcomes of practitioner audits and segmentation of the registrant base by gender, age and principal place of practice.

Notifications information includes the number of complaints or concerns received, matters opened and closed during the year, types of complaint, monitoring and compliance and matters involving immediate action.

Insights into the profession include:

• 5,155 podiatrists were registered as at 30 June 2018.1
• 35 held specialist registration as a podiatric surgeon
• 95 podiatrists had their registration endorsed for scheduled medicines
• 436 new applications for registration were received.
• Podiatrists made up 0.7% of all registered health practitioners in Australia.
• The number of podiatrists increased by 4.7% from 2016/17.
• 59.5% podiatrists were women and 40.5% were men.
• Victoria (VIC) was the principal place of practice for most podiatrists (1,659) and Northern Territory (NT) was home to the smallest number (23).
• The age bracket with the largest number of podiatrists was 25–29 (1,082).
• 327 podiatrists were under 25 years of age and 5 were aged 80 or over.
• 61 notifications (complaints or concerns) were lodged with AHPRA about podiatrists and 41 notifications were closed.
• 17 cases were being monitored by AHPRA at 30 June 2018 for compliance with restrictions placed on their registration.
• Immediate action was considered once and was not taken.
• 5 complaints were made about possible statutory offences by podiatrists during the year; 9 matters were closed. 2 of the new matters related to title protection; 2 to advertising breaches; 1 to an ‘other’ offence.

To download this report or to view the main 2017/18 annual report, visit the AHPRA website.

For more information

• Visit the AHPRA website
• Lodge an online enquiry form
• For registration enquiries: 1300 419 495 (within Australia) +61 3 9275 9009 (overseas callers)
• For media enquiries: (03) 8708 9200

¹ The term ‘podiatrist’ includes both podiatrists and podiatric surgeons unless otherwise specified.