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Legislation - The Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003
The Dental Council of New Zealand (DCNZ) is constituted under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 (the Act) as
the registration authority for the dental professions.
The Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 came into force on 18 September 2004. The Act brings the
regulation of health practitioners into a unified legislative framework covering some 88,000 professionals across
20 professions.
The purpose of the Act is to protect the health and safety of the public by establishing mechanisms to ensure that
health practitioners are competent and fit to practice their professions.
The Act provides for:
- Consistent accountability mechanisms across practitioner groups
- Scopes of practice for all health practitioners and processes to ensure that practitioners practise only
within their assigned scope of practice
- Mechanisms to maintain and improve the competence
of health practitioners and to protect the public from practitioners practising below the
required standard of competence
- The restriction of certain activities to specified groups of health practitioners
- Mechanisms for the recognition of new professional groups under the Act
In dentistry the Act has established a new 'combined' Dental Council regulating not only dentists but also dental
hyhgienists, dental therapists, dental technicians and clinical dental technicians.
Refer to the New Zealand
Legislation website for details of the Act.
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