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Corporate Services
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Engage in reviews of applicable legislation
Review of the HPCA Act
The Nursing Council made a submission to the Ministry of
Health’s 2012 review of the HPCA Act, stating that it did not
believe there were signifcant gaps in the legislation.
The review is looking at how the HPCA Act is functioning
within the wider health system and how it (or the broader
regulatory environment) could be improved. In its submission
in October, the Council made several suggestions to improve
the operation of the Act, but it emphasised that the regulation
of a health practitioner’s competence, conduct and health
had to be undertaken by an independent regulatory authority
and could not be left entirely to the individual or his or her
employer.
The Council does not believe that employer-based risk
management systems would protect the public. One of the
reasons for mandatory reporting of competence concerns
being introduced was to ensure that employees who had been
dismissed or had resigned for reasons relating to competence
were reported to authorities and were not able to move to new
jobs with competence concerns undetected.
The competence provisions of the Act have enabled the Council
to ensure that nurses maintain their competence to practise and,
where issues have arisen, to review competence and include
conditions to protect public safety.
With nursing migration an established feature of the global
nursing environment, the Council noted that a lot of employers
did not have the resources or ability to ensure that practitioners,
particularly overseas applicants for registration, had the
qualifcations and competence to practise in the New Zealand
context. Assessing overseas qualifcations for equivalency is a
complex activity that would be outside the reach of a signifcant
number of employers.