AT Scope of Practice review paused

5 Apr, 2024

Following our consultation to revise the Scope of Practice for the Anaesthetic Technician profession, and the outcome published on 13 February, a couple of things have happened:

• An expert advisory group (EAG) of anaesthetic technicians from across the profession and a lay person has been appointed to advise on completing this project.
• The project has been paused while we review the proposed name change from Anaesthetic Technician SOP to Perioperative Practice SOP. While going through the process of publishing the gazette notice, the Ministry of Health (as part of the normal process of checking these things) highlighted a potential issue with the way the gazette notice was framed.

We’re now considering this before finalising details. This will cause a delay, but in the meantime other aspects of the project will carry on. Everything else that has been done, discussed, and achieved to date remains the same while we look into this part of the review.

The purpose of regularly reviewing the scope of practice remains the same – to ensure it remains fit for purpose, and that practitioners are equipped to respond to an ever-changing healthcare practice environment.

As a result of having to change our approach and renaming the scope of practice, the previous gazette notice entitled Scope of Practice and Prescribed Qualifications for the Practice of Perioperative Practice in Aotearoa ǀ New Zealand (Notice no. 2024-s1776) has been removed.

This has been replaced with the original Anaesthetic Technician Scope of Practice notice as per the corrigendum published here.

You can be assured that while this will cause a delay in some aspects of the project, the project still goes on.

If you have any questions about what this means, click here to view FAQs.