Regulating the unregistered.

A high proportion of health services is provided by complementary health practitioners who are not subject to formal regulation via a statutory registration scheme. The risk is that such practitioners are not subject to effective forms of professional accountability in relation to services which have the potential to be seriously counter-therapeutic for their clients if they breach fundamental norms of propriety generally accepted within their professions and expected by their clients. Consideration has been given in both South Australia and Victoria to increasing the oversight over complementary health professionals. New South Wales and New Zealand have gone further, bringing such practitioners within the rubric of regulation. The operation of these schemes is reviewed and it is argued that there is a need to ensure that all health practitioners are subject to effective regulation in relation to their adherence to fundamental ethical obligations.