about
Health Quality & Safety Commission
The Commission is responsible for assisting providers across the whole health and disability sector – private and public – to improve service safety and quality and therefore outcomes for all who use these services in New Zealand.
Improving the quality and safety of care will provide better value for money and more efficient and effective use of taxpayer funding.
The Commission is charged with:
- providing advice to the Minister of Health to drive improvement in quality and safety in health and disability services
- leading and coordinating improvements in safety and quality in health care
- identifying data sets and key indicators to inform and monitor improvements in safety and quality
- reporting publicly on the state of safety and quality, including performance against national indicators
- disseminating knowledge on and advocating for safety and quality.
The Commission was formally established on 1 December 2010, under the New Zealand Public Health & Disability Amendment Act 2010.
Mortality Review Committees
Mortality review committees are statutory committees and are the responsibility of the Health Quality & Safety Commission.
The committees review particular deaths, or the deaths of particular people, in order to learn about how to best prevent these deaths in the future. They will work within the Commission to inform and enable quality and system improvement within health and other sectors.
There are currently five mortality review committees in New Zealand, plus a number of active sub-groups. Each committee has its own website.
- The Child and Youth Mortality Review Committee (CYMRC) reviews deaths of children and young people aged 28 days to 24 years.
- The Family Violence Death Review Committee (FVDRC) reviews all family violence deaths.
- The Perinatal and Maternal Mortality Review Committee (PMMRC) reviews perinatal and maternal deaths.
- The Perioperative Mortality Review Committee (POMRC) reviews perioperative deaths.
- The Suicide Mortality Review Committee (SuMRC) reviews suicide deaths.