The Nursing Council has voted to reject a government-proposed merger after 98 per cent of submissions backed the council staying a standalone entity.
The just announced decision was made at the council’s October meeting after 185 submissions were nearly unanimously in support of sticking with a standalone council. The submissions included 11 from district health boards, seven from professional organisations, five from education providers and three from private hospitals
Council chief executive Carolyn Reed said submitters expressed concerns that a merger would see increased costs – through nursing cross-subsidising smaller professions – and a less responsive and efficient council.
The council put the controversial proposal – to merge the administrative and regulatory roles of the 16 regulatory authorities into a shared services organisation (SSO) from next year – out to consultation in August.
The consultation document followed a new twist to the proposal with in mid-July the Director-General of Health writing to the 16 authorities suggesting working together to combine “backroom” functions as stage one of a two stage process to forming an SSO.
Reed said the council’s opinion of the SSO proposal was there were risks related to “public safety, governance, finance, staff capacity and expertise and data capacity”.She said 95 per cent submitters also were not in favour of combining back office functions as the first step to a single secretariat. “Some thought it was a good option for smaller RAs but that it could lead to inefficiencies for the Council and increased costs for nurses,” said Reed.
She said the council had decided at its last meeting to continue to function as a “separate responsible authority” but would be open to opportunities to work collaboratively with other regulatory authorities.
A spokesperson for Minster of Health Tony Ryall said he was aware of the council’s decision. Asked whether the government would continue to seek a merger his response was that “the authorities continue to work together towards a shared services organisation”.
The SSO proposal followed a call by Ryall in 2011 for a shared secretariat for the 16 regulatory authorities and the issuing of a Health Workforce New Zealand discussion document.
The regulatory authorities were divided over the call, with the Medical Council and Dental Council on one side and the Nursing Council the other, leading to the formation of the “across the divide’ steering group and Price Waterhouse Cooper being contracted in late 2012 to develop a detailed business case for councils to consider.
This resulted in the SSO business case that was presented to the regulatory authority chairs on April 15. The boards were initially called to make a decision by the end of May with the Minister seeking a proposal to him by July. Health Workforce New Zealand (HWNZ) said in April that it anticipated a shared secretariat being running by the start of 2014.
It is understood that without amending the Health Practitioners Competency Assurance (HPCA) Act it would be difficult to compel reluctant authorities to merge.
Meanwhile Health Workforce New Zealand’s March stakeholder bulletin had said it expected to release a second discussion document on its review of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance (HPCA) Act 2003 “in a few weeks time’ summarising the major themes and consulting on ‘options’ before a final report was due with the government in July. By June a summary of submissions had been released but to date there has been no public release of a second discussion document.
