The Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991 (RHPA) is the overarching Ontario statute that governs the self-regulating health professions, including medicine and nursing. Together with the profession-specific Acts and the Health Professions Procedural Code that forms a schedule to it, the RHPA establishes the colleges, defines professional misconduct and incompetence, and sets out the investigation, complaints, and discipline machinery that protects the public.
The RHPA framework is regulatory. It exists to govern the professions and protect patients, and it operates separately from the civil justice system, which is where an injured patient seeks compensation. Understanding the RHPA structure helps explain why a College complaint, a discipline hearing, and a medical malpractice action are distinct processes that can arise from the same clinical events but lead to very different outcomes.
Posts tagged Regulated Health Professions Act analyze Ontario decisions and disciplinary matters arising under the RHPA framework and their relationship to civil claims.
An Ontario tribunal ruled physicians have no Charter privacy interest in their patients’ records. Subsequent proceedings produced a 12-month suspension.
A family physician refused to cooperate with multiple CPSO investigations during the pandemic. The OPSDT held that the refusal was itself professional misconduct.
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