Health Practitioners (Protected Quality Assurance Activity—Taranaki DHB) Notice 2020

2020/249

Coat of Arms of New Zealand

Health Practitioners (Protected Quality Assurance Activity—Taranaki DHB) Notice 2020

Pursuant to section 54(3) of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003, the Minister of Health, being satisfied of the matters set out in that subsection, gives the following notice.

Notice

1 Title

This notice is the Health Practitioners (Protected Quality Assurance Activity—Taranaki DHB) Notice 2020.

2 Commencement

This notice comes into force on the day after the date of its notification in the Gazette.

3 Interpretation

In this notice,—

specified health practitioner means a health practitioner who—

(a)

is employed by Taranaki DHB; or

(b)

is authorised by Taranaki DHB to provide health services; or

(c)

has an access agreement with Taranaki DHB

Taranaki DHB means Taranaki District Health Board established by or under section 19(1) of the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000.

4 Declaration of protected quality assurance activity

The following quality assurance activities are protected to the extent that they are undertaken by Taranaki DHB in relation to specified health practitioners:

(a)

examining patient records; and

(b)

analysing the following data on patients:

(i)

clinical activities relating to admission and discharge:

(ii)

drug utilisation:

(iii)

morbidity:

(iv)

mortality:

(v)

outcomes of treatment; and

(c)

identifying and analysing any clinical practice that results in an outcome for patients that may, but need not, be an adverse outcome; and

(d)

reviewing patient management and treatment decisions; and

(e)

making recommendations on how participants can improve their practices and competence to—

(i)

improve the quality of care they provide; and

(ii)

reduce the incidence of adverse outcomes; and

(f)

facilitating and monitoring the implementation of recommendations described in paragraph (e).

Dated at Wellington this 5th day of September 2020.

Hon Jenny Salesa,
for the Minister of Health.

Explanatory note

This note is not part of the notice, but is intended to indicate its general effect.

This notice comes into force on the day after the date of its notification in the Gazette. It declares the quality assurance activities described in clause 4 to be protected.

Quality assurance activities are activities that are undertaken to improve the practices or competence of health practitioners by assessing the health services performed by those practitioners. The effect of protecting a quality assurance activity is that—

  • any information that becomes known solely as a result of the activity is confidential; and

  • any documents brought into existence solely for the purposes of the activity are confidential; and

  • the persons who engage in the activity in good faith are immune from civil liability.

The protections afforded by this notice are subject to certain statutory exceptions. For example, this notice does not prohibit the disclosure of information that does not identify, either expressly or by implication, a particular individual.

This notice remains in force for 5 years, unless sooner revoked.

Issued under the authority of the Legislation Act 2012.

Date of notification in Gazette: 17 September 2020.

This notice is administered by the Ministry of Health.