The Business Council of Australia (BCA) welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission to the National Competition Policy – National approach to worker screening in the care and support economy consultation paper. The BCA represents more than 120 of Australia’s leading businesses, employing around 1.1 million people, including businesses that deliver health and care services.
The BCA acknowledges government’s efforts to improve worker mobility and efficiency while enhancing the quality and safety for care and support workers through a national approach to worker screening. We welcome this work being undertaken and across the board under the National Competition Policy by Treasury and the linkage to the broader focus on initiatives to lift Australia’s productivity through better regulation.
We support Option 2, a single national check across the care and support economy, as the preferred option. We recognise the substantial work required to achieve this, and as such, support mutual recognition as the next step, while working towards national harmonisation over the longer-term.
As outlined in the BCA health and care economy blueprint, Supporting a Healthy and Productive Nation, there are many challenges Australia faces which will impact the ability to deliver care to all Australians, including an ageing population, workforce shortages, increasing burden of disease as well as fiscal pressures. Therefore, we must do all that we can to improve worker mobility and participation, whilst protecting the people who receive care.
Several Royal Commissions have now raised issues related to workforce, including screening. We recognise the ongoing work of governments, including Working With Children Checks, National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), aged care, personal care workers and early childhood education and care. In this context, the introduction of a uniform scheme of automatic mutual recognition of occupational licences was welcome reform.
However, these efforts continue to occur in siloes which is why we call for and support a coordinated national approach to the health and care economy – health, disability and ageing. We recommend National Cabinet, in consultation with clinical bodies and providers, rename the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency to the Australian Health and Care Practitioner Regulation Agency, with an expanded remit to oversee the health and care workforce.
Our submission outlines the principles which the worker screening reforms should be founded, subject to privacy considerations.
This is significant reform but is essential to address these challenges. Reform will require people, processes, technology and cultural change. Governments can sponsor change, but all stakeholders, including providers, must deliver and embed these changes.
A nationally consistent approach to worker screening will improve safety, increase labour mobility, reduce administrative burden and increase efficiency. We look forward to continuing to engage in these reform discussions.