Williams PotoHEALTH PRACTITIONERS (REPLACEMENT OF STATUTORY REFERENCES TO MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS) BILLSecond ReadingDebate resumed from 23 August.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): It gives me pleasure to rise to take a call on the Health Practitioners (Replacement of Statutory References to Medical Practitioners) Bill. I was not on the Health Committee at the time that this bill was reported; however I do have a little bit of industry knowledge and I have been able to read through the report and recommendations of the select committee to the House.What this bill in effect does is it redefines health practitioners" from what we previously knew as "medical practitioners" and it allows them to perform some statutory functions under legislation. The obvious example which is quoted in the legislation is about nurses and nurse practitioners. The legislation gives some clear definitions and it talks about their competencies. When we look at the way the health workforce has developed over the last 15 or 20 years or so with technology and with advances in medicine it has made it important for us to be able to review the practice of particular health professionals to ensure that they are able to do what they are able to do and also to remove particularly GPs from some of the statutory functions that they have usually and normally carried out. There are a variety of responsibilities particularly for nurse practitioners that have been defined within this legislation.What the bill also does is it gives us the opportunity to develop other health professionals. There are programmes to build other competencies into the work of health professionals. If I think back to my own experience in community mental health it was not so long ago that we developed programmes to ensure that our mental health support workers and support staff actually have some recognised qualifications. It was not so long ago that many of our mental health support staff did not actually have qualifications and there has been a real programme to ensure that those staff and other support workers are well trained well experienced and on a pathway to continuing education. That can only be good in terms of professionalising our support staff.As the bill was reported back from the select committee one of the most significant parts of the legislation is the comprehensive definition of "nurse practitioner". With an amendment in clause 42B to section 2(1) of the Medicines Act the definition includes ensuring that a nurse practitioner holds a practising certificate that they are registered by the Nursing Council of New Zealand under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 and that they have the relevant scope of practice. So that is now within the legislation: a definition of "nurse practitioner".There has been a change in definition with regard to doctors' surgeries now being called medical centres which I guess are what most of us would go to when we are attending our GPs. There are recommended changes to the appropriate sections of the Land Transport Act to ensure that references that previously would have been to doctors' surgeries are now to medical centres. There are also amendments to the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act which will insert within it definitions of "health practitioner" "primary health care provider" and "nurse practitioner".It is a good bill. It has ensured that nurse practitioners are recognised for the work that they do as well as other health practitioners. I commend the bill to the House."