King Annette: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
King Annette: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8146] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 When the member began her contribution on Part 6 of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill she raised the issue of disputes around scopes of practice the powers that the Minister would have how the Minister would be interfering and how that would not be wanted. I want to relay to the Committee that just a few months ago members of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists came to me to ask whether I would be able to intervene in a dispute they were having with the Nursing Council over a proposal that nurses would look at a perioperative scope of practice in anaesthetics. They asked if I could help them to overcome that problem and bring them together with the Nursing Council. I told them that they needed to go away and talk to each other. One needs someone to intervene only when one cannot make a decision. 
That is the environment we have now. We have a Nursing Council that is working on a number of issues around scopes of practice. Certainly a perioperative nurse scope of practice is very much on the modern agenda. I have no problems with that so long as it is within the competency of a nurse to be able to do that and that the nurse is trained and has the proper qualifications—the same as a doctor wanting a particular scope of practice. But when it comes to a dispute there has to be a mechanism. I think the lawyers would understand that. If there is a dispute—and they do occur have occurred and are occurring—there needs to be a mechanism to resolve that dispute. One could take them all to court and I am sure Pita Paraone would be worried if everything ended up in court when there was a dispute. 
What has been put in this bill is a provision that as a last resort people can go somewhere for resolution. The Minister has the opportunity to work with a panel of experts who will provide him or her with help. Because of the Acts Ministers of Health work under they receive advice on and are often asked to make decisions on all sorts of things that they have not been involved in in their other lives. What has been put in this part of the legislation is a mechanism that provides that whenever there is a dispute that requires consultation and a process at the end of the day a Minister—whoever that Minister is—will listen to those who have the expertise. Certainly this Minister will. I cannot guarantee that if she were the Minister Dr Scott would do so but certainly I would listen to expertise. 
When we get to the issue of whether there should be elected members then there is a provision in the bill and some future Minister may decide that there will be elections. I have said over and over again: who is this bill for? It is for the safety of the public. When this bill was brought in it had the same number of lay people and professionals. Health professionals are actually in the majority on the bodies and a majority of health professionals makes the decisions. They are doctors or nurses and not just people dragged off the street—the majority are the health professionals themselves. In my view what is needed is a statutory process that is transparent and open which shows who has been appointed and why. 
The member talked about political interference. I have had the experience—and I am sure Georgina te Heuheu has had the experience—of appointing people to those councils. After all only three have elected members—I think the other eight do not—so I am sure that Georgina te Heuheu would have appointed people to the podiatry board the physiotherapy board etc. I guarantee she did not look at the appointments in a political light. The nominations that come in to me are from the organisations and I make the appointments. I do not wonder whether they are members of the Labour electorate committee or have another political connection. 
What have come in to me from those professional bodies have been their professional nominations and I make the appointments in a transparent process. Everybody knows that I have appointed those people because my name is on the document. I believe that gives the public some certainty that this is an open transparent process. At the same time it gives the profession self-regulation. After all the people who are appointed are their own members.