Inside News

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General Interest
Volume 12 No 3 I June 2016 53
New Zealand
Branch News
Dr Lance Lawler
Staring through the windows of our
new offices, I’ve reflected on where
clinical radiology might be heading
as a profession. The recent work with
the Medical Council of New Zealand
(MCNZ) on telehealth has reaffirmed
for me not only that telehealth will be
a major part of radiology over the next
20 years, but also how much things
have changed from my days as a young
registrar in Christchurch; now a very long
time ago.
On 18 April the Ministry of Health (MOH)
launched a new health strategy which
can be found on the MOH website. The
strategy outlines the high-level direction
for New Zealand’s health system from
2016 to 2026, laying down a proportion
of the challenges/opportunities the
systems faces. While the strategy
identifies five strategic themes, it does
not directly integrate radiology or
radiation oncology. That responsibility
will fall to us as clinicians and the
College over the coming years. It will
thus be important that we continue to
advocate strongly as a profession and
tell our story.
Recently the College was advised
that the Physiotherapy Board of New
Zealand (PBNZ) would commence
an Injection Therapy Trial on 9 May
2016. This trial was based on the PBNZ
decision that injection therapy sits
within the general ‘scope of practice’
for a physiotherapist. Fundamentally
this raises serious issues of patient
safety, medico-legal issues and what
process regulatory agencies should
follow to amend scopes of practice.
While one would think that to change a
scope of practice, clearly documented
evidence outlining what training has
been provided to the clinician, along
with a robust consultation process
should be available; in this particular
case neither has transpired so far. While
the individual case is serious, it also
highlights the need for regulatory reform
of the Health Practitioners Competence
Assurance Act 2003 to meet the
challenges of ‘scope extension’ that is
likely to continue in the future.
On another note, the Health Workforce
New Zealand (HWNZ) Board and the
Medical Workforce Taskforce have
concluded that the model for allocating
HWNZ funding to support medical
vocational training is unstable. HWNZ
believes that the continuation of the
current model will lead to ongoing
shortages in workforces and severely
compromise the ability of the system
to meet healthcare needs in the
future. Because clinical radiology is
not considered a priority specialty, it is
likely that the District Health Boards will
receive a lesser funding allocation. Thus
the College is working very hard with
HWNZ to outline the challenges being
faced and reverse this situation.
A myriad of significant changes in the
future such as a national bowel cancer
screening program will impact on the
demand for radiology. These variables
sit outside simple workforce supply and
demand arithmetic, and need to be a
factor in HWNZ modelling. Pleasingly,
radiation oncology has been identified
as a vulnerable specialty, per College
advocacy. This allows the NZ Radiation
Oncology Executive to mount a cogent
business case that can target investment
into the problem areas, so as not to treat
the symptom, but the problem.
Lastly, I hope you all have the dates for
the 2016 NZ Branch Annual Scientific
Meeting (ASM) taking place at Te Papa
in Wellington from 5–7 August 2016 in
your calendar. The ability to continue to
generate sponsorship for conferences
has become significantly challenging
over the last couple of years. It therefore
becomes essential that the profession
supports the event, otherwise we risk
losing this valuable opportunity to
network as a profession. However, it is
pleasing that radiation oncologists are
taking part in the ASM again this year,
and the high quality scientific program
will ensure a good meeting.
As always, I am happy to talk to anybody
about Branch matters, or issues that they
might have. Please feel free to contact
me at