According to Section 6.2.3 of the AHPRA Advertising Guidelines over 600,000 registered health practitioners now need to ask any individual who writes online about their clinical care, or any website that hosts the online comments, to remove the comments. 

AHPRA Guidelines state: “A practitioner must take reasonable steps to have any testimonials associated with their health service or business removed when they become aware of them, even if they appear on a website that is not directly associated and/or under the direct control or administration of that health practitioner and/or their business or service. This includes unsolicited testimonials.” 

These Guidelines place an unreasonably onerous burden on all health practitioners. 

They require that health practitioners take steps to censor patients and consumers who provide unsolicited positive feedback or commentary in a public forum. They demonstrate a lack of understanding of the use of social media in Australia in 2014. 

They restrict consumers’ rights to express their positive experiences of healthcare. 

We call upon AHPRA to remove Section 6.2.3 from these Guidelines immediately.