The Medical Board of Australia says it is aiming to wrap up hundreds of ‘low-risk’ complaints against doctors within 4-6 weeks using a panel of doctors and investigators to weed out trivial notifications.

The emotional stress faced by doctors dragged through the complaints system has become a burning issue at a time when notifications to AHPRA have mushroomed — from 4000 in 2017/18 to more than 6200 in the last financial year. 

“One genuine notification we received was that the doctor had been eight minutes late and arrived with a takeaway coffee, implying the coffee was more important than the patient who was waiting,” said board chair Dr Anne Tonkin in a speech to the AMA conference on Friday morning.

“Notifications like this, where everyone can see the doctor is not a risk, these are the ones we want to get out of the system quickly.