Covid-19
The Medical Sciences Council of New Zealand will be uploading and providing any updates on COVID-19 on this page instead of the News Tab.
The Council urges all practitioners to keep well-informed and updated on all COVID -19 announcements.
You can find all past announcements under the "Useful Links" to the right.
Recent:
Information from the Ministry of Health:
26 May 2020
The Ministry of Health is working on two initiatives to help the health and disability workforce stay safe and stay up to date with the latest information about COVID-19.
Funded temporary accommodation is available for the front-line health and disability workforce.
To ensure the health and disability workforce remain safe while at work, District Health Boards (DHBs) and employers have already implemented a range of initiatives, including:
- introducing a category system to identify workers who are vulnerable to COVID-19, and taking steps to modify their duties where appropriate.
- makings sure all DHB facilities can separate suspected COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 cases into COVID-19 / non-COVID-19 streams.
- ensuring that all staff working in the COVID-19 stream have appropriate PPE.
A further initiative to keep the health and disability workforce safe was introduced on May 12 - front-line workers who need to stay away from their homes during COVID-19 can apply for government-funded temporary accommodation.
Workers in roles where they may have close contact with patients can qualify if they’ve been asked to relocate to a different part of the country as part of the COVID-19 response, or they live with a vulnerable person who is at higher risk of severe illness should they contract COVID-19.
If you know any providers or workers who could benefit from this initiative, please let them know they can find out more information about the eligibility criteria and application process by visiting our funded temporary accommodation page at https://www.health.govt.nz/funded-temporary-accommodation.
New app for health workers coming soon.
The Ministry of Health has developed a new mobile app available later this month, where health workers can access COVID-19 information from their mobile device. The emergence of COVID-19 and the response required by people working in the health and disability sector highlighted the need for a tool to provide easy access to the up-to-date information relevant to their area of work.
The Ministry developed the app with feedback from people working in the health sector. It lets people quickly filter content so they can find what is relevant to them and it also sends a notification when new or updated content is available. People can save content in the app to give them quick access to it again later.
The information in the app is publicly available; no registration is required and no personal information is stored.
The app will be available for free from the Google and Apple app stores, and we will announce the release of the app on social media and our website. We would appreciate your help promoting the app to your colleagues.
CPD Advice
3 April 2020:
The Council has received a number of queries from practitioners who are concerned about meeting their CPD requirements during this time of health services being focused on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic situation.
The Council expects that practitioners will have already completed their CPD activities for the 2019-2020 year and so those called for an audit should have their CPD information to-hand. However we will be extending the timing of the 2020 audit:
The audit for MLTs, MLPATs and ATs that was scheduled for April will be deferred until later in 2020. The date will be decided once we have more clarity about the national lockdown and its likely time span.
CPD requirements for 2020-2021 will be considered separately once we have a better understanding of the effect of the pandemic on practitioners. We expect this may take some months.