Ron Paterson

LLB (Hons), BCL Oxon

Contact details
Building 803, room 2.19
17 Eden Crescent
Auckland

Phone: +64 9 923 8028
Email: r.paterson@auckland.ac.nz

Available to students
By appointment

 

Ron Paterson is Professor of Health Law and Policy at the University of Auckland. He was New Zealand Health and Disability Commissioner 2000–2010. Ron is currently writing a book on medical regulation (“The Good Doctor”) as New Zealand Law Foundation International Research Fellow.

With law degrees from Auckland and Oxford Universities, Ron was a visiting law professor at the Universities of Ottawa and British Columbia in the mid-1980s, before returning to the University of Auckland (1986-99). He has taught and researched in the United States, as Fulbright Visiting Professor of Biomedical Ethics at Case Western Reserve University (1993) and Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy at Georgetown University (1998-99). He worked as Deputy Director-General, Safety & Regulation in the New Zealand Ministry of Health (1999-2000).

Ron is recognised internationally for his expertise in regulation of patients’ rights and healthcare quality improvement. He gave evidence on ‘Safeguarding Patients’ as an expert witness before the Shipman Inquiry in England (2004). In 2004-05 he chaired two major health system reviews in Australia: the Review of the Assessment of Overseas-Trained Surgeons, and the Review of National Arrangements for Safety and Quality of Health Care in Australia. Ron is co-editor of the textbook Medical Law in New Zealand (2006).

Ron is Chair of the New Zealand Banking Ombudsman Scheme, and a member of the Board of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.