Plan to reform health authorities questioned

The Medical Council and 15 other health regulation authorities cost $28 million a year to run. Photo / Janna Dixon

The staffs of the Medical Council and 15 other health regulation bodies are to be reformed under Government plans that would save $11 million a year.

The proposal is controversial and has prompted questions over the protection of public safety, the primary role of these authorities in licensing health workers.

Devised by Health Workforce NZ for Health Minister Tony Ryall, the scheme would also shrink the appointed and elected memberships of the authorities to an average size of seven each.

The authorities would have a combined staff of around 100, down from 165; and 116 members, down from 140. The aim is to reduce the organisations' running costs, from $28 million a year now in total, to around $17 million.

They are financed by health practitioners' fees, which are recouped from employers - about one-third of the total is paid by district health boards - and from patients in the private health sector.

Nurses pay $94 annually for a practising certificate, doctors $654 and dentists $764.

But a Health Workforce discussion paper says cost savings are not the sole aim.

"This proposal is also intended to increase efficiency, collaboration, innovation, and shared access to data to better inform future workforce planning."

The latter is a reference to workforce surveys, which the workforce agency considers will be more useful if they all asked the same questions. Several groups have expressed concerns about public safety and Labour Party health spokesman Grant Robertson questioned the claimed cost savings and whether they would outweigh the risks.

Nurses Organisation chief executive Geoff Annals said the scheme was clearly about saving money and missed the main purpose of regulation: public safety.

"It will be much harder for them to [focus on that] when there's a process to drive them together to save money."

Workforce agency chairman Professor Des Gorman said yesterday no change would be made to the authorities' core mandate of patient safety.

College of Midwives national director Karen Guilliland said the proposal appeared to be more to do with saving money than protecting the public. Strong, effective regulation saved lives, she said.

Resident Doctors' Association general secretary Deborah Powell said the Medical Council's staff possessed great expertise in applying medical standards.

Forcing a single bureaucracy to work with 16 kinds of health practitioners could undermine this, weakening safety.

Pharmacy Guild chief executive Annabel Young said reducing the $506 annual fee would be welcome, as long as professional standards were maintained and pharmacy practice wasn't considered less important than medical practice.

THE PROPOSAL

Merge the staffs of the 16 councils and boards that regulate 20 types of health practitioners, from doctors and dentists, to opticians and osteopaths.

This would:

* Cut 65 staff.

* Cut 24 elected and appointed positions.

* Cut costs from $28 million to $17 million.