New Legislation on Hospital Safety

Health Minister Bill English announced today that new legislation governing the safety of hospitals, rest homes and community residential care for people with disabilities would be introduced to Parliament later this year.

"The new legislation will provide a clear set of rules for everybody who provides health services so that consumers can be confident they are getting a safe service regardless of where they are treated.

"A number of existing pieces of legislation, some of which are 40 years old, will be revoked. Rest home and hospital operators have consistently complained about meeting multiple and contradictory safety requirements from several different agencies. I want to work with them to reduce compliance costs and bureaucracy," he said.

Mr English said the key points of the legislation were:

- All providers would need to meet national standards.
- Consumer safety would be clearly the responsibility of the provider.
- The number of agencies involved in providing safety audits would be reduced.
- Safety audits would be to modern standards rather than outdated legislation as is the case now.
- Providers would continue to be audited and monitored.
- The Ministry of Health would continue to be responsible for enforcement.
- Licensing of health agencies by the Ministry of Health would be phased out by 1 July next year.
- Outdated safety legislation would be revoked.

"Safety requirements include things such as safe food handling and storage procedures, a safe environment for patients and residents, infection control, and assessment and care planning requirements, which includes having sufficient trained staff to implement the care plans.

"The new rules recognise that providing health care is a different matter to when existing laws were drafted, some as long as 40 years ago.

"Under the new laws providers will be contracted to provide services to the Health Funding Authority (HFA) or be accredited and audited by a designated external agency. Agencies with HFA contracts will have safety of care provisions built into their contracts.

"Those providers without an HFA contract will still be required to meet appropriate national standards and be audited by an appropriate external agency.

"The ineffectiveness of present safety legislation was highlighted by recent audits of CHE hospitals conducted by the Ministry of Health. The Ministry found it was auditing against outdated standards and that CHEs had developed comprehensive and sophisticated systems to ensure safe delivery of modern healthcare.

"The changes will also remove overlapping responsibilities for safety within the health and disability sector.

"At present hospitals, rest homes, and community residential care for the disabled are subject to monitoring and audit by a number of agencies including the Ministry of Health and the Health Funding Authority.

"This duplication is unnecessary and wasteful. The changes announced are intended to improve the effectiveness of safety standards and oversight arrangements."

Mr English said he hoped the new legislation could be introduced this year, so that the changes could come into effect from 1 July 1999.

The pieces of legislation to be revoked were parts of the Hospitals Act 1957, the Old People's Homes Regulations 1987, the Obstetric Regulations 1986, and sections of the Disabled Person's Community Welfare Act 1975.