Performance Review

Osteopathic Council of New Zealand Performance Review Report

Under a section of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 (the Act) introduced in 2019, all regulatory authorities are required to regularly undergo performance reviews overseen by the Ministry of Health. These reviews examine how effectively a given authority is working, particularly in regard to the statutory functions set out in section 118 of the Act.

The Osteopathic Council’s first review under the Act took place in December 2021, and was conducted by DAA Group. As the Osteopathic Council have registrar and secretariat services provided by the Nursing Council of New Zealand, as did Te Kaunihera Manapou Paramedic Council at that point, the review covered all three regulators simultaneously.

The audit report has now been finalised, with the review commending:

• our work on developing our Public Engagement Strategy, and the recent campaign that was launched at the end of 2021
• the development and roll-out of the Child and Adolescent Health recertification programme
• the approach we took to revising our Code of Conduct, in that it “demonstrates te Tiriti o Waitangi is integral to osteopathic practitioners providing services to Māori”.

The report also recognised our completion of the review of the Continuing Competency Programme, which came into effect in April 2021.

The report did note, however, that the Osteopathic Council “is in the emergent stage of its commitment to embedding te Tiriti o Waitangi principles throughout its regulatory functions and capabilities” and three recommendations were made regarding work in this area.  The key component of these recommendations was that the Osteopathic Council completes the work recognised in its strategic goals and ensure that engagement with Māori continues.

The full audit report is available below. As required under the Act, our next Annual Report will include our response to its findings and recommendation.