Profession
Changes to the regulators themselves: mergers, ministerial appointments and proposed powers, and new national frameworks. These affect every profession.
An independent review found the scheme had "become too inward-looking, too fragmented, and too slow to respond to emerging risks and opportunities". Health Ministers accepted governance changes in May 2026 but deferred an integrated, risk-based framework for regulating all health professions.
An independent review made 18 recommendations to let primary-care professions work to their full scope. The federal government is now offering states $60m to remove barriers.
Following Harry Cayton's inquiry, BC cut its health regulators from 20 to 6 and created an independent oversight office. The new Act came into force on 1 April 2026.
Since January 2026, psychologists fully registered elsewhere in Canada can practise in Ontario for up to six months while they complete local registration.
New Zealand's bill would let the Health Minister direct the health regulators on policy and let a ministerial committee overturn registration refusals. Parliament has since been dissolved for the November 2026 election.
No reforms tracked for this country yet.
Where the idea came from, what it actually says, how governments use it, and the strongest criticisms. A primer in plain English.
Nothing written for this country yet.
Two leading regulation scholars set out the built-in limits of risk-based regulation: it can miss cumulative, systemic and newly emerging risks, and depends on the regulator's ability to detect risk.
Why it matters: A theoretical lens. The paper is about regulating firms; applying it to hard-to-measure harms such as psychological harm is our interpretation, not evidence of harm.
Harry Cayton, who developed right-touch regulation as chief executive of the UK's Professional Standards Authority, found the college met 17 of the 28 Standards of Good Regulation, and that many but not all of BC's health colleges showed 'a lack of relentless focus on the safety of patients'. He recommended fewer colleges, appointed boards and independent oversight.
Why it matters: Right-touch used to make regulators more accountable to the public, not to deregulate. It set off the reforms that led to BC's 2026 Act.
An opinion piece by Ian Powell, former executive director of ASMS, arguing New Zealand's HPCA Amendment Bill gives the Health Minister too much power over independent health regulators.
Why it matters: Captures what we see as the main criticism in New Zealand: political control of regulators, rather than lighter-touch regulation as such.
The New Zealand government's case for reform. It criticises 'unnecessarily high standards', long training and strict supervision, 'patch protection' and siloed regulators, and names associate psychologists among new professions it says regulators have been slow to adapt to, citing 'professional resistance or lack of direction from government'.
Why it matters: A strikingly direct statement of what the government believes is wrong with professional regulation. It mentions psychology once, naming associate psychologists as a new profession.
A rapid review of the government's 2025 Putting Patients First proposals through the lens of equity and Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations.
Why it matters: A critique, published as a Viewpoint in the NZMJ, of the 2025 Putting Patients First proposals, focused on what they mean for Māori health and cultural safety.
The current version of the framework. It keeps the six principles and eight elements, sets out a broad definition of harm (including psychological harm, financial loss and damage to trust), accepts that deregulation can be warranted where risk is well managed, and aligns with the UK's 'Smarter regulation' agenda.
Why it matters: The primary source. Worth quoting directly, including its own warnings about false assurance, and that regulation should only be called 'risk-based' where risks have actually been quantified and qualified.
Professor Mark Cormack's review found almost all primary-care professions face barriers to full scope that are unrelated to their education and competence, and made 18 recommendations to remove them.
Why it matters: A central document in Australia's 'top of scope' agenda, now backed by a $60m incentive for states.
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