The application form and requirements to have a quality assurance activity declared ‘protected’ under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act are set out on this page.
The application form is available to download in Word or PDF format. Before completing the application, please read the requirements relating to the form, content and quality standards of an application.
When submitting your application, please ensure that you post a signed copy and submit an electronic copy.
- Application for declaration of protected quality assurance activities (Word, 88 KB)
- Application for declaration of protected quality assurance activities (PDF, 197 KB)
Requirements relating to the form, content and quality standards of an application
Section 54 (5) of the Act enables the Director-General of Health, by notice in the Gazette, to state the requirements relating to the form, content and quality standards of an application to have a quality assurance activity (QAA) protected. A notice was published in the New Zealand Gazette on 18 December 2003, at page 4766. The requirements set out in the Gazette notice are summarised below:
Sections 52 to 63 of the Act provide for the confidentiality of information collected as part of a protected quality assurance process in relation to health practitioners registered under that Act. It is based on the underlying principle that there is benefit to the public from QAAs in relation to health services provided by those practitioners. There are benefits to the public through improvements in the competence and practice of health practitioners whether by QAAs or otherwise. There is a public interest test that is applied to each application to ensure that a QAA is a suitable mechanism to achieve those improvements.
Section 53 of the Act defines a QAA as an activity that is undertaken to improve the practices or competence of one or more health practitioners by assessing the health services performed by those health practitioners (whenever those services are or were performed); and includes a number of acts done in the course of, or as a result of, that activity. These acts include:
- the whole or part of any assessment or evaluation
- the whole or part of a study of the incidence or causes of conditions or circumstances that may affect the quality of health services performed by one or more of those health practitioners
- any preparation for that assessment, evaluation, or study
- making recommendations about the performance of those services
- monitoring the implementation of those recommendations.
The methodology described in the notice that the Minister of Health formally signs can incorporate a number of separate activities that collectively make up the 'activity' to be protected.
The application form is designed to ensure that applications:
- provide a title and description of the QAA
- outline the purposes of the QAA
- sufficiently identify the group of health practitioners who are involved in the QAA
- describe the method by which the activity will be carried out
- identify the procedures that will be undertaken to improve the practices and competence of the health practitioners if the activity identifies problems in the provision of any health services provided by health practitioner/s
- identify the processes for providing meaningful feedback to participating practitioners
- provide the name, description and official address of the body or organisation under which the QAA will be carried out
- provide the name and position of the person to be 'responsible' for the activity.
- explain clearly why it is in the public interest that the activity be declared.
In addition, the nominated responsible person must undertake to provide:
- an annual report to the Minister of Health and;
- an annual report to the provider of health services, whose employees and agents participate in the activity.