Breaking down a controversial ‘merger’ into two stages has been mooted as a way of stalling the most unpopular part of the proposal.
The director-general of health has written to the Nursing Council and 15 other regulatory authorities suggesting they work together to combine ‘back room’ or corporate functions as stage one of a two-stage process towards combining both regulatory and corporate functions.
The Nursing Council is due to release a revised consultation document this week to get nursing sector feedback on the new scenario.
It was the Government’s call to merge both the regulatory and back office functions of the 16 regulatory authorities for 2014 that had prompted concern from a number of the authorities about losing autonomy over professional regulation.
Carolyn Reed, the Nursing Council chief executive, said the Council was finalising a consultation document on the initial shared services organisation (SSO) proposal at a meeting in mid-July when it received the letter from the director-general.
“I think the stumbling block for many (authorities) seemed to be the regulatory functions being included,” said Reed. “Which is how we manage discipline, health and competence issues, and even how we go about registration and annual practicing certificates because each profession does those things differently.
She said the new proposal prompted a lot of discussion by council as it was clear from the letter that combining the back room or secretariat functions was viewed as stage one of a two stage process to combine regulatory functions also.
“There is no doubt that the council had some concerns about the SSO proposal,” said Reed. She said these were not alleviated by the proposed compromise as it was still proposing the ultimate combining of regulatory functions.
The Council was just finalising a revised consultation document containing the new information which was going out to the sector this week.
Reed said the director-general had wanted authorities to get back to the ministry by August 31 and while the authority chairs had discussed the proposal it would be up to the authorities’ councils to make the final decision.
Health Minister Tony Ryall has said he will not comment on the issue until decisions are made “which will be in due course”.
