What Is "Good Medical Practice" in the NZ Context?

Good Medical Practice is the MCNZ's statement of professional expectations for registered doctors. It is not a list of aspirations, it is the practical standard against which complaints, fitness to practise concerns, and disciplinary matters are assessed. Every doctor on the New Zealand medical register is expected to know its contents, apply them, and be able to demonstrate compliance when required. For a fuller view of the MCNZ standards framework and how it shapes CPD, see our guide on the Medical Council of New Zealand professional standards: a CPD guide for New Zealand doctors in 2026.

The document sits within the broader HPCAA framework. It works alongside the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights, profession-specific guidance, and the MCNZ's Professional Competence Programme. Together they form a comprehensive system for ensuring doctors remain competent, ethical, and fit to practise across their careers.

Why Good Medical Practice Matters More Than Ever in 2026

Three shifts make Good Medical Practice especially significant in 2026. First, patient expectations of openness, consent, and cultural responsiveness have never been higher. Second, Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations have been more fully embedded across MCNZ guidance and expectations. Third, digital practice (telehealth, e-prescribing, cloud records, and AI-assisted tools) has created new domains in which professionalism is tested daily.

Doctors who treat Good Medical Practice as a living document, one they revisit, reflect on, and update their practice against, are those best positioned to avoid complaints and to respond credibly when concerns arise. Those who file it away at registration and never revisit it are those most at risk of drift.

The Core Professionalism Standards Under Good Medical Practice

1. Patient-Centred Care

Every clinical decision must serve the patient's best interest. This includes respecting autonomy, providing clear information, supporting informed choice, and recognising the patient as an active partner in care rather than a passive recipient.

What this looks like in practice

Taking time to understand what matters to each patient, offering alternatives where reasonable, documenting shared decision-making, and supporting patients to ask questions throughout the consultation.

2. Clinical Competence and Scope of Practice

Doctors must practise within their scope and maintain the knowledge and skills required for safe care. This includes recognising the limits of one's competence, referring appropriately, and engaging in ongoing peer review, case audit, and supervised learning where indicated.

3. Honesty, Integrity, and Probity

Honesty is foundational. Good Medical Practice requires truthfulness with patients, colleagues, employers, the MCNZ, and the wider public. Dishonesty (in records, billing, qualifications, or regulatory responses) is treated extremely seriously and consistently attracts the most severe HPDT outcomes.

4. Effective Communication

Communication is not a soft skill, it is a core clinical competence. Standards include active listening, clear explanation, appropriate use of interpreters, attention to literacy, and responsiveness to patient feedback. For a deeper look at the conduct expectations that flow from these standards, see our companion guide on professionalism and conduct expectations for doctors in New Zealand.

5. Professional Boundaries

Doctors must maintain clear therapeutic boundaries with patients. Good Medical Practice addresses sexual boundaries (an absolute prohibition with current patients), dual relationships, gifts of significant value, social media contact, and the management of personal relationships with patients or their families.

6. Cultural Safety and Te Tiriti o Waitangi

Cultural safety is a core MCNZ expectation as continuing competence, not a one-off training event. Doctors must engage with Te Tiriti o Waitangi, recognise health inequities experienced by Māori, and provide responsive care to all patient populations including Pasifika, Asian, refugee, migrant, and disability communities.

7. Teamwork and Respect for Colleagues

Modern clinical care is team-based. Good Medical Practice expects respect, clear handover, appropriate supervision, constructive engagement across disciplines, and a willingness to raise concerns about colleagues where patient safety is at risk.

8. Continuing Professional Development

The MCNZ Professional Competence Programme requires documented, balanced CPD across clinical and non-clinical domains. Good Medical Practice is the benchmark against which CPD is planned and audited, and a clinical-only portfolio signals incomplete engagement with the framework.

Good Medical Practice Standards at a Glance

What's Particularly Emphasised in 2026

The 2026 landscape for Good Medical Practice reflects several contemporary priorities:

• Cultural safety as ongoing reflection, not a single workshop
• Digital and telehealth practice, consent, records, and continuity in virtual settings
• Open disclosure, honest, timely communication following adverse events
• Doctor wellbeing, recognised as foundational to sustained safe practice
• Equity and access, active engagement with health inequities and their clinical implications
• AI and decision-support safety, understanding the limits of tools that support clinical reasoning

Consequences of Falling Short of Good Medical Practice

Concerns can be raised by patients, colleagues, employers, the HDC, or the MCNZ itself. The MCNZ assesses whether a concern raises a fitness to practise issue and may refer serious matters to a Professional Conduct Committee or the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal. Outcomes range from education and conditions on practice to suspension or removal from the register. For a fuller look at where the line is drawn between everyday gaps and conduct that triggers MCNZ action, see our guide on unprofessional conduct under the MCNZ in New Zealand.

Documented ongoing CPD in ethics and professionalism consistently strengthens a doctor's position at every stage of any process, and is regularly recognised as evidence of insight by the MCNZ, the PCC, and the HPDT.

A Realistic Look at Good Medical Practice in Action

Practical Steps to Demonstrate Good Medical Practice

Treat every consent as a quality check

Document not just the decision, but the conversation that supports it. A signed form is not a documented discussion.

Audit your digital footprint annually

Social media conduct is professional conduct under MCNZ standards. Review what is public, archived, or tagged.

Balance your CPD portfolio

Include ethics, boundaries, communication, and cultural safety alongside clinical learning. A clinical-only record signals incomplete engagement.

Reflect meaningfully

Short honest reflections outperform lengthy theoretical ones. Three to five sentences per activity is plenty.

Engage with Te Tiriti o Waitangi each year

Learning and adjustment, not tick-boxes. Document at least one cultural safety reflective activity annually.

Protect your wellbeing

Sustainable practice depends on it. Burnout and fatigue quietly reshape clinical behaviour and are increasingly recognised as fitness-to-practise considerations.

Your Practical Good Medical Practice Checklist