NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE, No. 5 — 20 JANUARY 2017

GOVERNMENT NOTICES

General Section

Scopes of Practice and Prescribed Qualifications for the Practice of Medicine in New Zealand

Commencement

This notice is given pursuant to sections 11 and 12 of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003, and comes into effect on 1 February 2017. On that date, it replaces the 2015 Notice of Scopes of Practice and Prescribed Qualifications(^1)

Introduction

Under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003, the Medical Council of New Zealand (“Council”) is required to define the separate areas of medicine and specialties that make up the practice of medicine in New Zealand. The Council’s role is to identify for each of these areas (known as “scopes of practice” or “scopes”) the aspects of the practice of medicine covered by each scope. Medical practitioners seeking to practise in New Zealand must first be registered with the Council in one or more relevant scopes of practice.

The Council is also responsible for formally “prescribing” the specific qualifications that medical practitioners must have to be eligible to be registered in each of the scopes of practice. These prescribed qualifications will vary between the different scopes of practice. In many cases, a “prescribed” qualification will be an identified medical degree, or fellowship of a medical college, but in some cases the Council will require a combination of a medical degree, and additional training, or approved experience. In such cases, the medical practitioner will be required to meet all these requirements before he or she will be recognised as having the “prescribed qualification”.

To be able to practise medicine in New Zealand, a registered medical practitioner must hold a current practising certificate. To be eligible for a practising certificate, a medical practitioner must meet any recertification or competence programme requirements set by the Council. Recertification and competence programmes are scope-specific programmes, undertaken while in practice and designed to ensure that doctors maintain the required standard of competence within their scopes of practice.

This notice provides the current complete list of the scopes of practice within which medical practitioners may practise medicine in New Zealand, and the associated, prescribed qualifications. Where reference is made to relevant information published on the Council’s website: www.mcnz.org.nz.

The Council publishes consolidations of its Notice of Scopes of Practice and Prescribed Qualifications from time to time. This notice contains some stylistic and presentational changes. It also omits prescribed qualifications that are now spent (the 2015 notice having contained provisions that would cease to have effect on 24 November 2015). The one substantive new matter relates to the vocational scope of practice: Sports and exercise medicine (formerly Sports medicine).

Sports and exercise medicine

In March 2016 the Australasian College of Sport Physicians informed the Council that the College had passed a special resolution to change its name to the Australasian College of Sport and Exercise Physicians. The letter confirmed that the change was a change in name only, and that the scope of practice, the training programme and the recertification programme were not to change in any way. The Council undertook a consultation with relevant stakeholders about the subsequent changes that would need to be made to the scope, its definition, the prescribed qualification associated with the scope, etc. (It is a statutory requirement to consult stakeholders before making any changes to a Gazette notice. Scopes of practice and their prescribed qualifications are required to be described and published in a Gazette notice). The Council received eight responses to the request for submissions. All were in support of the change, and raised no objections. The Council approved the modified scope of practice title on 9 August 2016.

Dated at Wellington this 20th day of January 2017.

DAVID DUNBAR, Registrar, Medical Council of New Zealand.

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