APAN Appeals to the Radiological Council of WA to Reconsider Regulations for the Use of Lasers by Non-Medical Practitioners

With a constantly mobile workforce many qualified professionals within the aesthetics industry are travelling to other States seeking suitable employment, or a change of location for personal reasons.

As you may be aware, WA has a regulatory restriction that non-medical practitioners are not permitted to use a laser for cosmetic purposes. While in the past when no formal qualifications were in place these restrictions could be warranted.

However, we now have nationally-accredited qualifications at Graduate Certificate levels of both Level 7 and Level 8 that comprehensively cover both laser and IPL modalities. These qualify graduates in both the physics and the practical application in operating both IPL and Laser devices in a safe and efficacious manner.

We have had several instances with members who originated from WA experiencing challenges and have been disadvantaged in securing employment in other States as their training only included IPL and not lasers.

On the other hand, we also reported that qualified laser practitioners moving to WA who were not able to practice despite their qualifications and competence in the use of lasers. From a regulatory perspective, Australian health and regulatory departments are encouraged to move toward uniformity of standards across all states.

We therefore appealed to the Radiological Council of WA to reconsider the current laser restrictions for non-medical practitioners in light of the new qualifications in laser and IPL that contribute to safe practices in both IPL and laser.

We also pointed out that Queensland has a very success model that has demonstrated that through the appropriate licensing requirements non-medical practitioners can safely operate lasers. The evidence has pointed that this process has been successful and Queensland has one of the lowest incidents of burns in the nation.

Bringing these updates in qualifications to the attention of the Radiological Council, we proposed that they consider an amendment with regards to formally-qualified non-medical practitioners. We have requested a response and will keep you updated on their response.

We would appreciate acknowledgement of this letter. Could you also please keep us informed of developments.