Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003

Review of the HPCA Act

Purpose of the review

Section 171 of the HPCA Act requires the Director-General of Health to review the operation of the Act and consider whether any amendments to the Act are necessary or desirable. It is anticipated that a report on the review from the Director-General of Health to the Minister of Health will be ready by December 2008.

The review will examine the impact of the Act on the public, health care service providers and health professions, and determine whether the way in which the Act is being operationalised is appropriate given the costs to these parties. The review also provides an opportunity to provide information to affected parties on the Act and its potential to improve the quality of, and access to, health services and to investigate whether it could be used more efficiently to achieve its primary purpose: to protect the public.

Terms of Reference

Cabinet approved the Terms of Reference for the review on 21 September 2007.

Terms of Reference for the review of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 (Word, 48 KB)
Terms of Reference for the review of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 (PDF, 23 KB)

Consultation document: Terms of Reference for the review of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003

Process for the review

Phase One - Information gathering and analysis
The first phase of the review is to gather information. The Ministry is doing this in three ways:

A survey document, aimed at teasing out the substantive issues surrounding the operation of the Act at a national level. The document was aimed at a wide variety of groups working with the Act across the health sector.

View the survey document:

Review of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003: Identification of issues and solutions

View the analysis of reponses to the survey document:

Analysis of responses to Ministry of Health survey document - Review of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003: Identification of issues and proposed solutions
A web-based survey aimed at canvassing individual health practitioners on the operation of the Act. Over 960 responses were received to this questionnaire.

View the analysis report in Word and PDF format:

An Analysis of a Survey of Health Practitioners Concerning their Experiences with the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act (2003) (Word, 683 KB)

An Analysis of a Survey of Health Practitioners Concerning their Experiences with the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act (2003) (PDF, 373 KB)
The commissioning of a literature review and report into best practice in health workforce regulation, both in the New Zealand environment and internationally.

View the independent report:

Issues Paper on International Best Practice in Health Workforce Regulation for the Ministry of Health (Word, 1 MB)

Phase Two - Workshops and draft recommendations
The second phase of the review began in April with a series of workshops in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. These workshops provided those who are interested with the opportunity to have input in to the Ministry’s thinking around draft recommendations to address the issues identified in phase one.

Health practitioners, responsible authorities and professional associations gathered to give the Ministry their opinions on the Act, the way it has been implemented since its introduction in 2003, and suggestions to improve its operation.

The pages linked to below summarise the ideas brought forward by the workshops’ participants to address the implementation issues of the Act.

Note: These summaries represent the ideas of those who attended the workshops, and therefore represent a wide range of views. They do not represent consensus, nor do they represent the Ministry’s final proposals on the review of the Act.

Phase Three - Finalising recommendations and reporting to Parliament
As a result of the first two phases the Ministry finds that the Act generally seems to be operating as intended and there is no need at this time for major legislative change. There are clarifications and improvements to be made in a number of operational areas including the number and nature of regulatory authorities, appointment processes, collaboration between authorities and engagement with the sector, development of scopes of practice, restricted activities, registration processes, competence and fitness to practise and funding the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal.

In order to draft the Director-General’s report to the Minister on the outcome of the review, from August to October the Ministry ran workshops and had discussions with regulatory authorities, DHBs, professional organisations and other stakeholders, in order to test out proposals.

Phase Four - Public Consultation of Final Recommendations
Phase Four required the Director-General of Health to report to the Minister of Health on the review of the operation of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003. The review commenced in October 2007.

The Ministry of Health completed a draft of the review report following a three phase consultation process which comprised of submissions from the sector, surveys and workshops on the findings.

Comment on the proposed recommendations of the review report (pages xii to xvi) was sought and submissions closed on 20 February 2009.

This was a change to the process we had previously notified. This fourth phase of consultation was organised to allow interested parties to see the results of their input, and provide comment on the proposed recommendations.

Final review report

The final recommendations report is now available - Review of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003: Report to the Minister of Health by the Director-General of Health

Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Amendment Bill - update as at 3 July 2009

The legislative amendments proposed in the Director-General of Health's report to the Minister of Health on the review of the operation of the Act have not been accepted for inclusion as part of the Statutes Amendment Bill process. It is now proposed that a Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Amendment Bill will be drafted.

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Page last updated: 3 July 2009