Policy and Advocacy Library
The library is the culmination of the collaborative work of RACP members and comprises a comprehensive range of evidence-based, published RACP position statements, policies and submissions.
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Published in
New Zealand, Australia
Topic
Child health and young adult medicine
Description
The Youth Appropriate Health Care Position Statement outlines the need for healthcare systems to recognise young people as a distinct population with specific developmental, social, and healthcare needs. It calls for embedding youth centred principles across all healthcare settings, strengthening workforce capability, improving coordination between healthcare services, and ensuring policies and funding structures to support equitable, developmentally appropriate health care for young people.
Description
The RACP’s ‘A Healthy Future Beyond Fossil Fuels Position Statement’ outlines the health impacts of fossil fuels; considers the challenges of ensuring a just transition away from fossil fuels that prioritises Indigenous justice, health equity, and planetary health; and puts forward policy recommendations to Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand governments at every level.
Description
The RACP submission to the Education and Workforce Committee on the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill highlighted risks from prioritising acute accidents over the greater burden of work related disease caused by cumulative and long latency exposures. It urged recognising chronic and psychosocial harm as critical risk, lowering notification thresholds to enable early prevention, retaining protections for small PCBUs, embedding occupational medical expertise in Codes, and assessing impacts.
Description
The RACP supports MCNZ’s updated draft statement on cultural competence and cultural safety and welcomes the inclusion of a dedicated hauora Māori statement. The submission affirms the importance of culturally safe, equity-focused medical practice and recommends strengthening the statements by explicitly anchoring them in Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and emphasising power imbalances, racism, bias and structural inequities in healthcare.
Description
This submission supports improved fee transparency on the Medical Costs Finder while emphasising that effectiveness will depend on careful design, appropriate safeguards, and complementary reforms including Medicare investment, workforce development, and expanded public outpatient capacity.
Topic
Access to healthcare
Description
The RACP welcomes the opportunity to submit to the Rural, Regional and Remote Medicare Inquiry. The inquiry examines how funding, workforce incentives and service models affect access, sustainability, and equity in rural Australia. The RACP provides physician perspectives on strengthening Medicare, promoting integrated care and policies that ensure fair access to health services regardless of location.
Description
The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) position statement, ‘Using artificial intelligence in clinical practice’, provides a framework for the responsible adoption of AI. It outlines key principles for implementing, interacting with, and monitoring AI to achieve the ‘quintuple aim’ of healthcare while mitigating risks like algorithmic bias and medicolegal liability. The statement emphasizes that AI must support, rather than replace, physician judgment.
Description
The RACP and its Tasmanian Committee are pleased to provide further input into the Tasmanian Government’s 20-Year Preventive Health Strategy consultation. The 20-Year Preventive Health Strategy will provide an overarching framework and direction for preventive health in Tasmania over the next two decades. The RACP response praises the Strategy’s long-term vision for preventive health in Tasmania and suggests ways to strengthen the Strategy.
Description
This submission to the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing highlights that current referral rules no longer match the needs of an ageing population and rising chronic disease. Key barriers include rigid validity periods, administrative burden and poor system interoperability. It recommends more flexible GP-to-specialist referrals, standardised referral information, improved MBS education, and stronger digital tools to support coordinated multidisciplinary care.
Description
The Doctors’ Health Alliance developed a draft national Doctors’ Health and Wellbeing Curriculum to strengthen the wellbeing of doctors and medical students across Australia. The RACP provided feedback advising the draft Curriculum was viewed as relevant, positive and well-aligned with the RACP’s training and wellbeing priorities. In addition, several gaps and areas were identified that for address and expansion.
