HCAA Challenges Petition ReportHealth Select Committee’s Plan: Cross Fingers and Hope!
HCAA’s petition to Parliament focused squarely on patient safety. The Health Committee’s final report fails on multiple fronts to address the accountability gaps that continue to place patients, whānau, and health staff at risk. It accepts unsubstantiated assurances at face value, sidesteps structural failures, and avoids clear evidence that the system remains reactive, opaque, and unable to prevent repeat harm.
While acknowledging systemic issues, the report treats existing inter-agency arrangements as sufficient and leaves those failures largely unchallenged. There is no mechanism for consumers to raise concerns about the conduct, performance, or failures of oversight bodies or Health Entities themselves. The Committee concludes by saying it merely “hopes” existing agencies will respond, while making no recommendations at all. This exposes a deeper failure: the absence of any credible, independent oversight of the system itself.
In a system marked by ongoing, preventable harm, reliance on hope is not just inadequate, it is an abdication of accountability. This failure to act is precisely why the petition was launched: to call for independent oversight and real accountability where the system has repeatedly failed those it is meant to protect.
Click here to see HCAA response: 10 Key Issues Overlooked in the Health Committee Report
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The Health Consumer Advocacy Alliance is a collective of experienced healthcare advocates who share a common passion for creating positive, effective and lasting change. Our founders have a common standpoint; that health care as it is now is not working, that the experience of New Zealanders in the health system is not what it should be. By working together and pooling our experience we identify areas and opportunities where we can facilitate change within the healthcare system and ensure that our voice, the consumer voice, is heard.
The Health Consumer Advocacy Alliance — founded by consumers for consumers. Experts by experience
The Health Consumer Advocacy Alliance — founded by consumers for consumers. Experts by experience
