There are fresh calls for weblinks to adverse tribunal decisions against doctors to be removed from AHPRA’s public register after five years, amid claims they are unfairly harming doctors.

Avant says AHPRA’s current policy of including the links on the register in perpetuity is in some cases more draconian than sanctions imposed by the criminal system.

“It is not fair and it is punitive,” Avant’s chief medical officer Dr Penny Browne said.

“How can it be fair for a finding made many years before that has no relation to the doctor’s current practice or conditions to remain linked to the AHPRA register forever?” she told the AMA national conference in Brisbane last Friday.