Notes: NZCCP Meeting with Minister of Mental Health, Matt Doocey Online, 10 June 2025, 10:00-10:30am
Attending for the College: Malcolm Stewart. Marthinus Becker.
Attending for Ministry: Hon Matt Doocey, Lisa Gestro, Dan Parker.
Key Topics Covered /Observations & Undertakings
Variety of Viewpoints: Acknowledged broad differences in opinions amongst members of the College. Some people are strongly opposed, some people are strongly in favour, and many people are in the middle – not entirely discounting the concept but wanting to make sure the role is created in a way to deliver safe and effective service, and are not seeing that represented in the current communication about the role. We noted that a priority for us and our members remains ensuring clinical psychology is better resourced.
Minister Doocey was well aware of the variety of opinions. He expressed willingness to hear the concerns that leave people uneasy and to see if they can be addressed but expressed commitment to having the project proceed. He talked about his work with people in similar kinds of positions when working at the Tavistock Clinic in London as being a major driver for his belief in this project. In response to our comment on clinical psychology, he also talked about planned further expansion of the intern clinical psychology positions in the Training Hubs from 40 last year to 60 this year and 80 positions by 2026.
Name of Role: College expressed strong belief that name should not include the term “psychologist” to ensure role-holders not confused with fully-trained psychologists. The Minister asked about alternative names. Psychology Associate seen as somewhat better. Psychology Wellbeing Practitioner also mentioned. Acknowledgement that it is easy for many in the public to confuse different helping professions irrespective of similarity and difference in names.
Minister appeared receptive to argument and to ensuring that “Psychologist” is not in the name after further clarifying that equivalent positions overseas do not use the psychologist title. He also noted that there is a role of the College and other Psychology organisations in ensuring that the public understands the difference between psychologists and others providing therapy and related services.
Increased Starting Point: College argued that typically Degree as a starting point is generally too low. Psychology draws on a scientist-practitioner framework which is why fully trained psychologists require research degrees. It was argued that although the AP role is a lower level role the proposed role would still benefit from a minimum honours level training as it has overseas. The added value of adding a psychology-based training pathway into this type of role to the others already extant is that psychologists are able to combine knowledge of psychological theory and therapy in the service they provide to an extent not possible for others. There is a large pool of people already with Honors and Masters-level degrees with clinically relevant coursework and experience that would take on this training and be able to function with a higher level of psychological expertise without reducing available candidates to lower than what would be needed.
Minister seemed understanding and receptive to the rationale for this.
Scope of Practice / Areas of Deployment: Stating that skill level likely to be more applicable in primary health area and NGO sector rather than in secondary services. Need for strong supervision by psychologists and finding services that can provide this to make it safe and effective.
Minister acknowledged may be more suited to primary services, and said that services will determine their own ability to utilise employees. He expressed surprise because he felt psychologists may welcome these positions to help them with some simpler and more routine aspects of tasks.
Shifting of Funding from Psychologist to Psychology Associate Positions: In response to the Minister’s question about what would be helpful, the College identified the concern of many about clinical psychology funded positions being used to employ Psychology Associates instead.
Minister Doocey stated strongly that this was not the intention or his expectation and asked of his staff for further communication to state this.
Regional Differentiation in Capacity to Assimilate the Additional Training: It was identified that some areas, including Christchurch have effectively full employment of psychologist positions in secondary and tertiary services, which causes concern for some interns about finding roles when they graduate.
Some areas will also struggle to have capacity to provide supervision of the Psychology Associates in addition to the clinical psychology interns and interns from other programmes.
The minister and his team noted that although the national shortage is very clear they were not aware of regional concerns and had not heard that places like Canterbury had these concerns and would follow up on that.
Regular Meetings: The College suggested regular meetings with the Minister to address this and other issues and possibilities that arise over time. The Minister agreed to quarterly meetings with representatives of the College. This will be arranged.
Minutes prepared by Dr. Stewart
.svg){kind=spacer}