Health and Community Services
April 11, 2011

New Legislation to Regulate the Practice of Medicine

Patient safety and quality assurance will be enhanced through An Act Respecting the Practice of Medicine, 2011 which will be introduced in the House of Assembly today by the Honourable Jerome Kennedy, Minister of Health and Community Services. The new legislation will replace the Medical Act, 2005 and will guide how the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Newfoundland and Labrador (the College) regulates the practice of medicine.

“One of our main priorities as a government is to ensure we protect patient safety and put quality assurance measures in place that residents of Newfoundland and Labrador can be confident in,” said Minister Kennedy. “This new legislation helps us ensure that physicians practising in this province continue to maintain their high professional standards. It also assists the College of Physicians and Surgeons carry out its primary mandate, protection of the public.”

The proposed act will incorporate quality assurance measures into the regulation of the practice of medicine. Proposed measures include establishing a Quality Assurance Committee; requiring mandatory continuing and remedial education; ensuring provisionally licensed physicians receive appropriate orientation, supervision and assessment; and, the monitoring of prescribing practices.

“An Act Respecting the Practice of Medicine, 2011 gives the College the tools it needs in quality assurance, continuing professional development and in licensing so that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians may continue to have every confidence in the quality of the medical care they receive,” said Dr. Vinod Patel, Chair of the Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Newfoundland and Labrador. “The new legislation reflects the fact that the practice of medicine is in constant evolution and that the College must continue to evolve with it in order to protect the public.”

Some of the key elements of the new legislation are:

• The establishment of a Quality Assurance Committee, which will include members, who are not physicians, appointed to represent the public interest. The committee will have the ability to subpoena records; order a physician to undergo an evaluation, assessment, examination or practice review; and, restrict a physician’s practice. The committee will also be able to order a physician to obtain counselling, and order the completion of an educational or training program;
• Authorization for the College to make regulations, with ministerial approval, to monitor and verify physician prescribing practices;
• Authorization for the College to make regulations, with ministerial approval, to ensure that sponsors of provisionally licensed physicians have appropriate orientation, supervision, and ongoing assessment processes in place;
• Provisions for the Complaints Authorization Committee to act quickly to suspend or restrict a physician’s licence where there is a reasonable belief that the physician has engaged in conduct deserving of sanction;
• Recognition that no one physician will have the training or practice experience to perform all medical procedures. The act will restrict licence holders from changing to a different scope of practice without assessment and possibly retraining;
• Authorization for the College to make a regulation, with ministerial approval, that specifies to whom information gathered during the discipline process has to be disclosed. Public access to disciplinary records will be extended from five years to a minimum of 10 years; and,
• The requirement that all physicians participate in mandatory continuing education.

“The new act will help us further some of the recommendations of Madame Justice Cameron’s Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Hormone Receptor Testing,” added Minister Kennedy. “We have made significant progress in implementing Justice Cameron’s 60 recommendations, with 43 complete and a further 12 substantially complete. Our new legislation is fully in keeping with the recommendations surrounding continuing education of medical professionals. We are committed to restoring public faith in our health care system and I believe we have made great strides to that end. This new Act helps further that commitment.”

• Video of news conference

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2011 04 11                                                                               11:10 a.m.