Scott Lynda: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
Scott Lynda: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8229] 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (NZ National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 Schedule 1 is about the provisions applying to the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal. As we know this bill was supposed to be based on the Medical Practitioners Act but the medical practitioners do not want a bar of this bill any more. They want out of it completely because they do not like what has happened to it. They do not think it will be anything like as good as the 1995 Medical Practitioners Act which was of course brought in under a National Government a very good Government that brought in the Health and Disability Commissioner Act and the Medical Practitioners Act and solved the problems of 30 years which had been happening in relation to dealing with complaints quality assurance and credentialing in our hospitals. 
We have heard a bit of concern about this bill with its provisions applying to the Heath Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal from the groups included. I am talking about the physiotherapists and the occupational therapists. They were really concerned about the cost. I bet members do not know how much it costs to run the disciplinary tribunal per day. It costs $20000 to $25000 per day. That is a lot of money. [ 
Interruption 
] That is what they told us. So they were really concerned as were the 12 groups that will come under this bill that they would face the major costs involved in running a Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal. They were saying they did not want to come under one tribunal. They actually wanted to have their own smaller tribunals that could reduce the costs for them. 
The decision was that there would be only one tribunal but some changes were made to the schedule to allow for a reduction in costs so that the occupational therapists and physiotherapists would not face the huge costs that occur like the costs that doctors are faced with when appearing before the disciplinary tribunal. It is a very big event not just for the doctors but also for patients and their families to go through the process that gets them to the Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal. It takes some years to work through the gathering of evidence and the investigation. This schedule deals with the powers to summon witnesses the powers to investigate witnesses’ allowances privileges and immunities and contempt; all the things that are the legal status of a disciplinary tribunal. 
We were concerned that there is now only one level of charge. The National Party does not believe that that is the way it should be. We do not think that there should be only one charge. That means that somebody who may be found guilty today of professional misconduct which is a much lower charge than disgraceful conduct will be all lumped together under one charge now. That will put extra stress upon the medical profession and the other health practitioners who come under the disciplinary tribunal. It is far better to have two or three levels of charges so people know the degree of severity though we do have the profession being able to look at cases of fraud or sexual abuse—that sort of thing—under a separate category. 
The chair of the tribunal is appointed for 3 years and can serve no more than 9 years. I think Wendy Brandon did an extremely good job when she was chair of the tribunal. It was her view that we should have more than one charge but that was not listened to. Changes were made to the fees that will be available. The chair and deputy chair are paid a fee at a rate fixed by majority of the chairpersons of all authorities under this bill. That was something we added. What was struck out was looking at fixed remuneration. We do not want the costs for the other professions that now come under this Act to be too high. Witnesses do get paid allowances and we did make changes to legal and medical assessors. The words “the tribunal may from time to time appoint a legal assessor” was struck out. What we put in place was that “the tribunal may from time to time appoint a technical adviser.”