MCNZ recertification requirements for doctors in general and vocational scope

Every doctor who holds an annual practising certificate (APC) from the Medical Council of New Zealand (Te Kaunihera Rata o Aotearoa) must take part in a recertification programme. The power comes from section 41 of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 (HPCA Act), which lets each responsible authority set programmes that make sure its practitioners stay competent. Recertification is not a one-off test. It is an ongoing cycle of planning, learning, reviewing your own work and talking about it with colleagues.

The Council does not run most of these programmes itself. It sets the minimum requirements and then relies on recertification providers to deliver them:

• General scope: most doctors who are not in a college training programme take part in Inpractice, the programme administered by bpacnz.
• Vocational scope: the recertification programme of your medical college or another approved recertification provider for that scope.
• Both scopes: you must meet the requirements in both scopes.
• Provisional and special purpose scopes: you work in a Council-approved position under Council-approved supervision instead of a standard CPD programme (NZ and Australian graduates in provisional general scope complete prevocational medical training).

The practical result is that two doctors in the same hospital can have quite different rules. A general-scope doctor counts hours. A vocationally registered specialist works to a credit system set by their college. The rest of this page puts the two side by side, then shows where ethics and professionalism learning fits. The Council's own summary is on its recertification requirements page.

The Council publishes the two sets of requirements in different places: a web page for general scope and a 2019 booklet for vocational scope. Here they are in one table.

The biggest difference is that general-scope doctors meet fixed numbers, while vocational-scope doctors meet a mix of activities across three categories, with the provider deciding how much each activity is worth.

For doctors in the general scope the Council's general scope requirements list the elements below. Each one is annual unless stated otherwise.

Professional development plan

Your PDP is where the rest begins. It records what you want to improve and why. A good plan names two or three concrete goals tied to your actual work, for example "improve how I document consent discussions for minor procedures in urgent care", rather than "keep up to date".

20 hours of continuing medical education

This is the learning component: courses, conferences, reading with notes, workshops and online modules that relate to your practice and PDP. It is the category where a structured online course most naturally sits.

10 hours of peer review

Peer review means discussing your real work with colleagues: case review groups, journal clubs based on cases, morbidity and mortality meetings, or reviewing each other's notes. It is about your practice, not general teaching.

One medical audit

An audit measures something you do against a standard, makes a change and, ideally, re-measures. Ethics topics can make sound audits: the percentage of procedure notes that record the risks discussed, or how often a chaperone was offered for intimate examinations.

Four collegial relationship meetings

You nominate a collegial relationship provider, a colleague who meets with you four times in the cycle to talk through your practice, your PDP and any difficulties. These conversations are a good place to discuss what you learned from a course and whether it changed what you do.

Essentials Quiz, multisource feedback and regular practice review

The Essentials Quiz is done in your first year in Inpractice and then every three years. Multisource feedback (colleagues and, where practicable, patients) comes round once every three cycles. Regular practice review happens when it is scheduled. The Council may ask for evidence of your enrolment and participation, so keep records as you go.

Vocationally registered doctors recertify through their college or another accredited provider under the Council's strengthened requirements, released in November 2019 and fully in place by 1 July 2022. The vocational scope booklet requires a mix of activities "as prescribed by the programme provider, across all three categories":

1. Reviewing and reflecting on practice: informal or formal review of your actual work with feedback, such as peer review and discussions with colleagues.
2. Measuring and improving outcomes: quality improvement that reviews your everyday work and the outcomes for patients, such as clinical audit.
3. Educational activities: learning from a wide range of resources, teaching and mentoring, ideally guided by the development needs you have identified.

Alongside the categories you need:

• A structured conversation at least once a year with a peer, colleague or employer, covering your clinical practice, development needs, learning goals and career intentions, using data from your CPD and your own reflection.
• A PDP with specific goals that are achievable, time-based and suited to your actual work.
• Cultural safety and health equity embedded in everything, including reflecting on how your own views and biases affect your clinical interactions and the care you give.
• Access to multisource feedback and collegial practice visits (regular practice review), which providers should give extra credit for.

There is no Council-wide hour total for vocational scope. Your college sets the credit values, decides which activities count in which category and can recognise activities completed through another accredited programme or your employment. If you are unsure whether something will count, check your college's handbook before you start rather than after.

If you hold both a general and a vocational scope you must meet the requirements of both. In practice, ask each provider whether it will recognise activities recorded in the other programme, so you are not doing the same audit twice.

Doctors in provisional general scope (for example NZ and Australian graduates in prevocational training) and provisional vocational or special purpose scopes meet their obligations through Council-approved positions and supervision. Ethics learning still matters here, because supervisors are assessing professional behaviour as well as clinical skill, but there is no separate CPD hour count to meet.

Recertification providers are responsible for telling the Council about doctors who are not meeting their programme requirements. For general scope, the Council can ask you to provide evidence of your enrolment and participation in Inpractice. In both cases your APC renewal depends on you taking part.

Simple habits make this easier:

• Log activities when you do them, with the date, hours and a one-line note on what you learned.
• Keep certificates and reflective notes together, linked to the PDP goal they serve.
• Book your four collegial meetings (general scope) or your structured conversation (vocational scope) early in the cycle.
• Choose your audit topic in the first quarter so there is time to re-measure.
• Remove patient identifiers from reflective notes. Statements made for a recertification programme have protection under section 44(4) of the HPCA Act, but it is still good practice to write reflections that focus on learning.

Falling behind in recertification is different from a complaint or a competence concern. If you have received a notification about your practice, see our separate guide on the MCNZ complaint process.

The Council's standards are the natural anchor for ethics learning. Good medical practice (November 2021) opens with the line "A doctor's first concern is to take care of their patient, and to do so with respect, honesty and professionalism", and the Council's current statements turn that into specific expectations. Several are recent enough that many doctors have not yet worked through them:

A course alone is an educational activity. It becomes stronger evidence when you link it to other categories:

1. Write a PDP goal that names the standard (for example the 2021 Informed consent statement).
2. Complete a course on the topic and note two things you will do differently.
3. Audit a small sample of your own records against the standard (general scope audit, or the vocational "measuring and improving outcomes" category).
4. Write a short reflection on what the audit showed and what you changed.
5. Bring it to a collegial meeting or your structured conversation.

That one goal then touches education, review, audit and reflection, which is what both programmes are designed to encourage.

Our courses are self-paced and online, grounded in the HPCA Act, the Code of Rights and the Medical Council's own statements, and written with New Zealand doctors among their audience. Expect short checks as you go and a 20-question exam at the end (pass = 16, or 80%); you get a certificate plus a reflective write-up to file with your Inpractice or college records.