Our fortnight has been filled with advocacy and stakeholder events. This week was spent in Canberra, advocating for the extension of the additional 10 Better Access sessions, presenting our latest survey results and as always, pushing for the key advocacy items that we believe will result in the most benefit to our members and their clients. During our time at Parliament House, we met with the Hon Emma McBride MP, Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention and Assistant Minister for Rural and Regional Health, Office of the Minister for Health, Senator Jordan Steele-John's Chief of Staff, Melissa McIntosh MP (Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention), Dr Mike Freelander MP (Chair of Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport) and many others.
Key items discussed include:
- Extending the additional 10 Better Access sessions
- The need to retain and rebuild the diversity of psychology- both areas of practice and training pathways
- Returning to a one-tier psychology profession, where all psychologists are valued and respected equally
- Increasing Medicare rebates to $150 to both increase client access and make working within Medicare more financially secure
- Introducing a provisional psychologist Medicare rebate
- Funding for assessment and testing
- Options for boosting the supervision network
- Supporting the mental health of psychologists
- Regional, rural and remote practitioner incentives and initiatives
- Reinstating the 4+2 pathway and making other training pathways more accessible and affordable.
Additionally, we have attended Better Access Evaluation meetings and reviewed the final draft report, represented members at the Psychology Board general registration competencies consultations, participated in important NDIS working groups, collaborated with key rural health providers, met with researchers about the training needs for GP’s, participated in the review of the Autism CRC assessment guidelines along with many of our members, met with headspace National, completed several submissions, including one regarding the review of the Ahpra’s framework for identifying and dealing with vexatious notifications.