King Annette: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
King Annette: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8079] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 It has been very interesting to listen to the debate so far on the short title and Part 1 to listen to the Opposition’s speeches and to realise that although its members sat on a select committee and heard evidence and although they are supposed to have an understanding of the bill there is one large collective amount of ignorance being spoken on the bill in this House today. 
I would like to start with some of the issues that have been raised. This bill is for the safety of the public of New Zealand. Is it not interesting that throughout the debate we have heard so far what has been spoken has been about the health professionals? Certainly they are important but this bill is not only about health professionals it is also about the safety of the public. We have had these statutes for many years in New Zealand and they were put in place for the safety of the public of New Zealand. That is why every profession is not registered under such statutes. Not every profession causes harm to the public in the way that the professions we register do so their statutes were put in place for the safety of the public. It would be very nice to hear some debate about the public rather than it always being about the health professions. I would like to put that on record. This is about the public’s safety. It is how we ensure that our health professionals are competent to provide the health services that people need that they are registered properly that they are properly monitored and that the public is safe. 
One of the issues that has come up over and over tonight is scopes of practice and this particular part mentions scopes of practice. It is very interesting that members of the Opposition do not know what scopes of practice are but the Medical Council whose job it is to handle scopes of practice has said that it is very aware of what they are. I thought that Judy Turner made an extremely good contribution when she set out what came out of Nick Smith’s petition and Ken Shirley’s bill. Back in 1999 they were talking about scopes of practice. If we ask the Medical Council whether it knows what scopes of practice are not only does it know what they are it has gone through most of the specialities and asked what areas need new scopes of practice developed changed more work done or already done. 
So let us run down the scopes of practice that already exist. Breast medicine for example does not need any change to its scope of practice; it is already defined. Accident medicine does not need change; it is already defined. If one goes through the whole list one sees that the Medical Council knows exactly what a scope of practice is and so do most other people. But Opposition members have chosen to make it sound like something foreign something new and something scary. That is a totally erroneous portrayal of what scopes of practice are. 
I know that the opposition to this bill particularly from ACT and National has nothing to do with the quality of this bill. It is about political opposition for the sake of political opposition; there is no other reason. I know for example that Ken Shirley’s bill which came before this House wanted to put in place far more draconian things than this bill does. That bill wanted to ensure that doctors were registered under the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. That was not done but Mr Shirley had the very good idea that we ought to ensure that medical practitioners can practise within their ability. They were the overseas doctors and that is why Mr Shirley brought that bill to this House in the first place. The back-off from that bill and ACT’s opposition to this one is very interesting indeed. 
I want to mention a couple of other things. For example much has been made tonight about the New Zealand Association of Optometrists pulling support for this bill. I assure members that the chair of that association Andrew Sangster has told me that that is not correct. The association was worried about parts of the bill and raised those issues but it did not pull support from this bill. It supports it. 
There are other issues that I think are worth mentioning as well. One of the things that Lynda Scott talked about was that in the old days the way to decide whether a person was capable of practising was for him or her to sit an exam. Well I have always remembered something that a health professional told me. He said that a qualification received 20 years ago was a qualification received 20 years ago—it does not make one competent to practise. The whole basis of this bill is to ensure that health professionals are competent to practise. It is based on the Medical Practitioners Act and I do not think that members opposite know that the basis of that Act is the competence to practise. 
The issue of who decides that was raised. The health professionals’ own registration bodies decide whether they are competent to practise—not the Government not the Minister but their own bodies. The Opposition has tried today to say that it is the Minister who decides whether health professionals are competent but their own registration bodies—their own councils—decide whether they are competent. Georgina te Heuheu for example raised the issue of whether there is protection for women mistreated by some of our health professionals. This bill ensures that the bodies that decide whether health professionals are competent to practise ensure that they are competent to practise—not because they received a qualification 20 years ago. They are assessed and checked to ensure that they are allowed to perform whatever they are registered to perform on patients. 
Rather than peddle misinformation it is really important that members opposite tell the truth about this bill. It is based on the Medical Practitioners Act. Who said that? It was not the Minister but the Medical Council which has to work with the Medical Practitioners Act. It was not members of the Opposition but the council that works with it every day that said that this bill was overwhelmingly the same as the Medical Practitioners Act. This bill has been widely welcomed by many health professionals. Nurses for example have been waiting since 1988 for their Act to be updated. A whole decade went by and nothing was done for their statute. 
What I think is really important about this legislation is that so many health professionals bought into the concept of one bill to cover all health professionals. Why would one not do that? After all doctors are not better than nurses. Nurses are not better than optometrists. Optometrists are not better than podiatrists. Podiatrists are not better than physiotherapists. It is all about health professionals who provide a service to the public. Why should there not be a common bill that covers them all? Some members here tonight would like to make the bill elitist. It is not elitist; it is a bill to ensure the safety of the public of New Zealand—a comprehensive bill that includes most of the elements of the Medical Practitioners Act. 
The bill also addresses some of John Carter’s concerns—he just happened to be looking at the wrong part of the bill. If he looks at Part 8 “Amendments to Health and Disability Commissioner Act 1994” he will see that the things he was interested in are addressed. Many of the issues raised by the public have been addressed in this bill. 
I would like to thank the Ministry of Health for 3 years of hard work. It has done a superb job not only of getting the bill together but working with so many health professional groups— 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: Tolerating you! 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Yes tolerating me and fortunately not having to tolerate Paul Hutchison. The ministry wakes up every day and thanks God that it does not have to tolerate him. 
I would like to say to the members of the Committee who have made a constructive contribution to this bill that they will be proud of it in future. It is visionary bill and will lead the way for occupational statutes for years to come.