Regulated Health Professions Act: overview
The Regulated Health Professions Act (RHPA) establishes a common and consistent regulatory framework for all health professions in Nova Scotia.
The Regulated Health Professions Act became law in November 2023. Professions are being migrated to the act through the creation of profession-specific regulations. All regulators will be migrated to the act.
Under the Regulated Health Professions Act, all health profession regulators are required to follow modern best practices and standard processes. They must also participate in the Quality Assurance Program for Regulator Performance implemented by the Department of Health and Wellness that assesses regulators against a set of standards for good governance.
The Regulated Health Professions Act allows government oversight of regulators with transparency, strong patient protection, and quality-care assurance. It provides all regulators with the tools they need for investigations, professional conduct reviews and fitness to practice assessments.
The Regulated Health Professions Act also addresses recommendations from the Mass Casualty Commission’s final report, Turning the Tide Together (2023), by supporting smaller regulatory bodies to amalgamate to share resources, improving government oversight and understanding of regulator capacity and performance, and shifting the regulatory model towards proactively addressing misconduct.
Who the act applies to
The Regulated Health Professions Act applies to all licensed professions under Department of Health and Wellness oversight. Each profession is being migrated to the Regulated Health Professions Act through the creation of profession-specific regulations under the act and the repeal of previous existing legislation for that regulator. Once a regulator is migrated, the act will fully apply.
Profession-specific regulations establish licensing categories, entry to practice requirements, scope of practice and practice exemptions.
Regulators will be migrated in 3 phases. These migrations include the amalgamation of the dental hygiene, dental technology and denturism regulators, as well as amalgamation of the nursing and midwifery regulators.
Migration phases
| Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 | |
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General regulations
The Regulated Health Professions General Regulations made under the Regulated Health Professions Act improve transparency in regulator performance, ensuring all regulators are working to the same standard and supporting system transformation.
Most of these regulations only apply to regulators once they have migrated under the Regulated Health Professions Act; however, increased accountability and transparency requirements apply to all regulators immediately, including:
- annual report content requirements
- website information
- quality assurance program for regulator performance
The general regulations under the Regulated Health Professions Act standardize vital processes (like licence reinstatements, settlement agreements and record custodianship). These regulations also set requirements for additional consultation when regulators make bylaws and establish consistent practice review procedures.
Government oversight
Once migrated, each regulator implements the Regulated Health Professions Act, Regulated Health Professions General Regulations and its profession-specific regulations.
Department of Health and Wellness now has continuous monitoring through the Quality Assurance Program (QAP) for Regulator Performance.
Profession-specific regulations for each regulator establish broad and flexible scopes of practice and enhance capability of what can be done in regulator bylaws (like setting out scope of practice for individual licensing categories and creating new licensing categories).
There are also significant checks and balances on regulator actions, with strong intervention authorities to support system transformation and ensure public protection, including:
- regulators must provide notice to the minister of their intent to make bylaws related to scope of practice or licensing categories
- government can direct changes to any bylaws, policies and practice standards
- minister has power to request and require information to be shared
- Quality Assurance Program for Regulator Performance will assess regulators against best practices and can require action plans to address gaps or issues with governance
- if significant regulator performance issues are identified and the board of the regulator refuses or is unable to address, government can appoint an administrator to replace the board
The increased accountability and transparency requirements in the Regulated Health Professions General Regulations apply to all regulators. All regulators, whether migrated to the Regulated Health Professions Act or not, are subject to the powers in the Regulated Health Professions Act that allow government to request information from a regulator, make binding directives to a regulator, order investigations and replace a board with an administrator.