Everything tagged with this theme. The country and profession filters at the top still apply.
Pharmacists can now treat urinary tract infections in every state, and Queensland and Victoria have made wider prescribing schemes permanent. NSW and Queensland made schemes permanent before their evaluations were published, and Victoria announced its decision days before publishing its evaluation summary.
The Psychology Board of Australia consulted on replacing the six-year route to registration with one five-year degree, removing the internship year and the national exam for domestic graduates, and will recommend the change to the federal government.
An independent review made 18 recommendations to let primary-care professions work to their full scope. The federal government is now offering states $60m to remove barriers.
Ontario pharmacists now prescribe for 28 minor ailments, after 9 were added on 1 July 2026; Nova Scotia pharmacists can prescribe for conditions including hypertension and type 2 diabetes.
Planned to grow to 10,000, physician associates came under GMC regulation in 2024. After coroners' findings and an independent review, the roles are to be renamed and restricted, but not abolished.
No reforms for these filters.
In Australia and Ontario, the route to the protected psychologist title is set to get shorter. New Zealand has created a registered assistant tier, and the UK assures a wider psychological workforce through voluntary registers. We have found no outcome evidence for any of it yet.
In Australia, pharmacy scope reforms have been made permanent before any independent evaluation was published. In the UK, physician associates were scaled up with no study of safety incidents. We think that is the strongest, evidence-based criticism of these reforms.
Where the idea came from, what it actually says, how governments use it, and the strongest criticisms. A primer in plain English.
Nothing written for these filters.
AMA Queensland criticises the state government for making its pharmacy scope pilot permanent before an independent evaluation, calling the decision 'disappointing and dangerous'.
Why it matters: The evaluation-gap point is documented and fair. The 'dangerous' characterisation is an assertion.
Two leading regulation scholars set out the built-in limits of risk-based regulation: it can miss cumulative, systemic and newly emerging risks, and depends on the regulator's ability to detect risk.
Why it matters: A theoretical lens. The paper is about regulating firms; applying it to hard-to-measure harms such as psychological harm is our interpretation, not evidence of harm.
Reviewed UK research on physician and anaesthetic associates published from 2015 to January 2025. Of 29 studies meeting its inclusion standard, none examined safety incidents and only one directly observed clinical competence.
Why it matters: In our view, a clear statement of the evidence gap: the authors warn that absence of evidence of safety incidents is not evidence that the roles are safe. Co-author Martin McKee was BMA president in 2022-23.
An independent review found the evidence on the roles weak and based on observational data. It made 18 recommendations, including renaming the roles 'physician assistant' and 'physician assistant in anaesthesia', and requiring a named supervising doctor for each physician assistant. The government accepted all of them.
Why it matters: In our view, a template for how a government re-tightens a role after scaling it ahead of the evidence.
The current version of the framework. It keeps the six principles and eight elements, sets out a broad definition of harm (including psychological harm, financial loss and damage to trust), accepts that deregulation can be warranted where risk is well managed, and aligns with the UK's 'Smarter regulation' agenda.
Why it matters: The primary source. Worth quoting directly, including its own warnings about false assurance, and that regulation should only be called 'risk-based' where risks have actually been quantified and qualified.
No library items for these filters.