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.
To contribute your expertise, go to represent your profession.
Contact us if you can’t find what you’re looking for.
Search results
Description
Australia’s Regional Rural and Remote Healthcare Crisis Report presents the key challenges, evidence base, and policy directions needed to strengthen specialist healthcare access outside metropolitan areas. The report highlights inequities in specialist care, along with the pressures facing the regional, rural and remote workforce and the structural barriers that continue to constrain training capacity and long-term retention. The report sets out a five-point plan to build a resilient, local...
Description
In our Aotearoa New Zealand election statement, Let Us Care: A plan to improve specialist care for New Zealanders, the RACP calls on all political parties to commit to three practical, achievable actions that will improve access to specialist care, strengthen a pressured workforce, and deliver better outcomes for patients.
Description
The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Position Statement outlines evidence and policy on ending HIV transmission and improving health outcomes for people living with HIV. It calls on Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand governments to fully fund free universal access to HIV healthcare services; increase sexual health sector funding; and fund and support the implementation of innovative, evidence-informed, and equitable multidisciplinary models of care for HIV prevention and management.
Topic
Election-related health advocacy
Description
The RACP and its Victorian Committee are committed to working with the incoming Victorian government to enable physicians and trainees to meet the community’s health needs, both today and tomorrow.
Description
Our feedback to the review of the National Pharmaceutical Benefits Regulations calls upon the PBS to centre compliance education and proportionate risk management approaches for PBS prescribers in regulatory reform. It urges the PBS to better differentiate regulatory approaches for prescriber administrative error from penalties for deliberate non-compliance.
Description
The RACP broadly supports the Federal Government’s proposed private health reforms aiming to improve neonatal care, hospital in the home services and rural and remote private hospital funding. Our recommendations aim to reduce pressure on the hospital sector, optimise physician workforce distribution and improve patient access to innovative, sustainable physician-led care models.
Topic
Informed financial consent
Description
The College's submission on IFC backs education, guidance and voluntary compliance over legislative change as the most pragmatic approach to IFC. It argues that both practitioners and patients need clear guidance and practical implementation tools before regulators reach for enforcement.
Topic
Occupational and environmental health
Description
AFOEM contributed expert feedback to the Queensland review, highlighting the vital role of occupational and environmental physicians in workers’ compensation outcomes. Key recommendations were to better recognise cumulative and long-latency work-related conditions, update permanent impairment assessment guidelines and accreditation processes, and establish a strong clinical governance framework.
Description
Our comment on the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Medicines Shortages and Other Measures) Bill 2026 strongly supports its proposals for transparency and earlier notice of medicine shortages and discontinuations from medicine sponsors. These reforms will help physicians make informed prescribing decisions, improve care coordination across the health system and give patients greater certainty of supply. We also call for further reforms to better manage Australia's medicines supply.
Description
Our submission to the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 welcomes the Bill as a good first step, but calls for a clearer path to ending all gambling advertising, a ban on inducements like bonus bets, and stronger protections to reduce harm for people and their families.
