Posted April 24 2026
By Alasdair Spinner
Psychiatry was added to the Medical Board of Australia’s Expedited Specialist Pathway in December 2024. AHPRA has now released its 2025 data for this new pathway, which gives us the first proper look at how the pathway is being used and how many psychiatrists applied for the ESP Psychiatry.
A reminder: the ESP for psychiatry is currently only open to UK-qualified psychiatrists. These figures do not tell us how many SIMG psychiatrists in total moved to Australia in 2025. They tell us how many psychiatrists applied for registration via the new pathway.
The numbers are modest but being a new initiative,and with it being limited to one country of training (UK) it is not surprising. Ahpra recorded 48 psychiatry applications in 2025 and 33 registrations through the ESP. Registrations were also heavily weighted to the second half of the year, with 29 of the 33 psychiatry registrations occurring between July and December.
Of the 27 psychiatry registrants with approved supervised practice plans, 22 were in public hospitals, 4 in private hospitals and 1 in another setting.The state split is probably the most interesting part. WA had 13 approved psychiatry supervised practice plans and Queensland had 11. NSW had 2 with Victoria having only 1.
Remuneration, active recruitment, vacancy levels and the ability to offer a supervised position all impacted these figures. WA and QLD appear to have done a better job of converting ESP eligible job applicants into new hires.
NSW’s low number is worth considering, particularly given the public psychiatry workforce issues in NSW and the industrial relations dispute between the State Government and public sector psychiatrists during 2025. It’s difficult to imagine that this did not at least affect the way some candidates viewed NSW.
One ESP registrant 1 Victoria does not mean this State only attracted one overseas psychiatrist. The ESP is only one route. For example, we recruited an Irish-trained psychiatrist into Victoria last year who went through RANZCP traditional assessment, not via the ESP. This is why the ESP data needs to be read in the context of a new pathway and not as an indicator of psychiatrists entering Australia.
The RANZCP pathway remains the bigger comparison point. Naturally, the RANZCP specialist pathway was still a much larger pipeline back in 2024. The Medical Board’s college pathway summary recorded 123 RANZCP applications and 298 SIMGs on the RANZCP pathway. Of those with interim assessment outcomes in 2024, 66 were assessed as substantially comparable, 48 as partially comparable and 3 as not comparable. The report also recorded 49 RANZCP SIMGs recommended for specialist recognition in 2024.
The ESP is not replacing the College SIMG pathway. It sits alongside it as an option for the psychiatrist and in psychiatry it is still much smaller in application numbers. The 2025 and 2026 RANZCP figures will be interesting because they should start to show the effect of the new Accelerated Pathway for UK-qualified psychiatrists, as well as any broader shift in how the College assesses substantial comparability. RANZCP created this Accelerated Pathway in response to the ESP.
Ahpra asks SIMGs whether they consent to their contact details being shared with the relevant specialist medical college. Across all ESP specialties, 80% consented. For psychiatry specifically, 29 of the 33 registrants consented, with 2 saying no and 2 not responding.
This confirms SIMGs want continuing connection to the College, despite not needing to, if ESP eligible. The vast majority of ESP eligible psychiatrists I speak with want to enter Australia under the RANZCP framework for a number of reasons: professional standing, long term career options and professional development and so on.
What do you think? Will the ESP help address workforce shortages in Australia, or not?