Facing up to the reality of medical harm in Aotearoa New Zealand

When accountability is absent, patients pay the price!
  • HCAA’s response to the Health Select Committee’s final report is not disappointment but deep concern at a document that normalises failure and substitutes hope for accountability. “Disappointed” does not begin to capture the reaction to a report that acknowledges serious failures yet makes no recommendations for action, amounting to little more than crossing fingers and hoping for improvement.

  • This woeful response risks further eroding trust in the parliamentary process. Oversight remains largely embedded within the very system it is meant to scrutinise, undermining sustained learning and genuine improvement. The consequences extend well beyond patient safety, affecting equity, access to care, workforce wellbeing, and overall quality of care. Leaving these failures largely unchallenged is not good enough. Patients deserve accountability and real reassurance that change will occur—not more hope.

  • 10 Key Issues Overlooked in the Health Committee Report
  • 1. The report fails to address the absence of any mechanism for consumers to raise concerns about the health bodies that are currently positioned as having oversight of the system, which leaves our Health Entities effectively unaccountable.
  • 2. While the report acknowledges that unintentional and preventable harm continues to occur, it fails to respond meaningfully to overwhelming evidence that patients and health staff face ongoing, preventable harm.
  • 3. The report treats existing agencies as operating proactively, despite evidence that significant interventions typically occur only after serious harm, sustained public pressure, or media exposure.
  • 4. Contradictory statements from the Ministry of Health and the HDC about their independence are not examined, undermining confidence in current accountability claims.
  • 5. Without independent oversight, health system improvements remain vulnerable to shifting political priorities, organisational restructures, and changes in ministerial focus.
  • 6. Assertions that feedback and restorative practices are improving are accepted without evidence, despite the absence of a national restorative framework.
  • 7. The claims in the report of ‘system strengthening’ completely overlooks the significant voids in consumer engagement across the health system, especially localised engagement that is genuinely consumer-led, the learning capability of the health system as a whole, and the massive cuts in experience of our existing workforce.
  • 8. Reliance on the National Quality Forum is untested in practice, with no scrutiny of its transparency, effectiveness, auditing, or independence.
  • 9. The report accepts future regulatory reform promises as sufficient, despite repeated failures and reversals, including over reliance on outdated medicines and unregulated devices still causing harm.
  • 10. Workforce safety concerns are still not being properly addressed, despite evidence that clinicians and health staff fear speaking up and lack effective, independent escalation pathways.

  • The four co-founders of the HCAA have all experienced significant harm in our health system. Every day we are in touch with New Zealanders from all walks of life who have also been harmed when seeking treatment.

Click on the following links to find out more: MEDIA STATEMENT: HCAA Responds to Petition Report Health Select Committee : Petition of Health Consumer Advocacy Alliance: Establish an independent Patient Safety Commissioner accountable to Parliament Health Minister Simeon Brown not ruling out Patient Safety Commissioner Watch our oral submission to the Parliamentary Health Select Committee and read the transcript... Read HCAA written submissions in support of our Parliamentary petition asking for the establishment of an independent Patient Safety Commissioner... Find out what our petition asked for and follow it's progress on the Parliamentary website. An Independent Patient Safety Commissioner: the missing piece of the puzzle! Read our blog... Read our April 23 press release... Newsroom: Calls for patient safety advocate as medical regulation delayed NewstalkZB: Petition seeks to prevent harm in the health sector, backed by former Heath NZ Chair Where is the independent voice in our health system? England has the world's first Patient Safety Commissioner; find out more here...
From left: Hūhana Lyndon, Hon Jan Tinetti, Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall, Charlotte Korte, Sue Claridge,Ricardo Menéndez March, Denise Astill.
In April 2024 we launched a Parliamentary petition setting out our request for an independent Patient Safety Commissioner. We presented the petition to MPs at Parliament on the 27th of June.