Front loading your Medicals and Police Checks

Quite interesting to see that the ASPC are now promoting the front loading of Meds and Police Checks as part of the visa application process stating that Offshore Applicants can now initiate Health and Character Checks (Police Checks) before being allocated a case officer.

The inclusion of health forms on the department’s of immigrations website means that applicants can reduce the time taken to finalise the application by commencing health and character checking before their application is allocated to a case officer, however, applicants and migration agents should be aware that:

• Applicants are responsible for all costs associated with medical examinations and providing police clearances;
• Health examinations and police clearances have limited validity periods, generally for a period of 12 months;
• If clearances expire before the application is finalised they may be requested again, and must be provided at the applicant’s cost;
• The ASPC may need to undertake other checking in respect of the application that can delay a decision; and
• Undertaking health examinations and providing police clearances does not guarantee an application will be successful.

Before deciding when to undertake Health and Police Checks, applicants and Agents can monitor which applications are currently being allocated for assessing by utilising the aspc.processing@immi.gov.au e-mail service. Sending a blank email to this address will result in an auto response being issued by the ASPC detailing the current processing timelines in a similar format to that detailed here

If you decide to undertake these checks before being allocated a case officer it is suggested that these checks be initiated when allocation dates are within three months of your date of lodgement.

Its important to Keep in mind that the date of your Meds / Police checks is often used as a basis for calculating the start date of the 12 month period in which you have time to validate or activate your visa so doing your checks to early could limit the amount of time you have to validate your Visa.

It is important to note that:

Applicants are not obliged to undertake these checks now and may wait until receiving a further request from the department.

If any applicant is pregnant – please contact the ASPC first for further advice before any person included in the application commences health or character checking.

Non-migrating family members of applicants for a provisional/SIR visa should not undertake health and character checking unless specifically requested to do so.

Medical Examinations

Information on health checking requirements and medical forms can be obtained at http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/health-requirements/index.htm

Please pay careful attention to the information available on this page including Form 1071i detailing health requirements for permanent entry to Australia. Visa applicants in Australia must contact Health Services Australia (HSA) to arrange a health examination.

Applicants outside of Australia must arrange their health examination with a panel doctor and/or radiologist nominated by the Australian Government.

A list of panel doctors and radiologists is at
http://www.immi.gov.au/contacts/panel-doctors/index.htm

Please note that the panel doctor is required to send all medical results to the Local Clearance Unit in Australia and not give them to applicants or their representatives. Information about the Local

Clearance Unit including their address is available at http://www.immi.gov.au/contacts/australia/processing-centres/lcu-sydney.htm

Before attending a health examination applicants need to:

1. Print off the required numbers of forms 26 and/or 160 to present to the panel doctor and radiologist; and
2. Complete the “Office use only” box to indicate the visa class applied for (eg subclass 136), the file reference number and / or the ICSE Request ID number on each form.

Police Clearance Certificates

Police Clearance Certificates are required, for each member of the applicant’s family unit aged 16 years or over, regardless of whether or not they are migrating.

Clearances are required for each country the applicant has lived in for a cumulative total of 12 months or more in the last 10 years.

Applicants should also provide an address history for any other relevant persons who need to satisfy the character requirements as part of this application.

For information on obtaining police clearances please refer to the Form 47P Character Requirements available at http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/47p.pdf