Revised standards for all dental practitioners published today

30 Oct 2015

Revised registration standards for continuing professional development (CPD) and recency of practice have today been published by the Dental Board of Australia (the Board), which regulates Australia’s 21,000 registered dental practitioners.

To help dental practitioners prepare for commencement, the revised standards are being published in advance.

The revised standards come into effect on 1 December and will replace the standards that are currently in place. They will apply to all dental practitioners who will need to meet the obligations of the revised standards by the next registration renewal period on 30 November 2016.

Revised registration standards

Revised guidelines and FAQ

The requirement of 60 hours of CPD activities over a three-year CPD cycle has not changed. The three year CPD cycle has moved from 1 July - 30 June to 1 December - 30 November to align with the renewal of registration cycle. For further information, please refer to the FAQs and Guidelines on CPD above.

The revised Recency of practice registration standard has not fundamentally changed. It has been reformatted and reworded to assist registrants and applicants to understand and comply with this standard.

The revised standards were approved by the Australian Health Workforce Ministerial Council on 27 August 2015 and were part of a scheduled review of standards. A public consultation was held as part of the review. National Boards today published consultation reports providing a summary of the consultation processes, rationale for any changes and proposed way forward, including areas where further work is planned. The submissions to the public consultation are published on the past consultations page.

The Board will be publishing a revised professional indemnity insurance (PII) arrangements standard soon, which will be in effect from early 2016.

Additional resources

The following additional resources about the revised standards are available on the AHPRA website.

• letters of approval
• consultation reports:
  • Continuing professional development registration standard 
  • Recency of practice registration standard 
  • Professional indemnity insurance arrangements registration standard 
• common FAQs and timetable for commencement