The Toitū te Waiora Workforce Development Council will be closing operations from 19 December, and disestablished from 31 December 2025. The Education, Health and Community Industry Skills Board will pick up its functions.
The Health and Wellbeing skill standard development project was launched in January 2025 following completion of Health and Wellbeing qualification reviews in October 2024. The reviews highlighted that current qualifications were no longer fully reflecting the diverse roles and evolving needs of the sector.
This led in part to development of new qualifications (e.g. the New Zealand Certificates in Disability Support at levels 3 and 4, the New Zealand Certificate in Long Term Conditions at level 3), and also development of new skill standards which will – in the long term – replace unit standards used for assessment in existing programmes of study.
Development of an entirely new set of health and wellbeing skill standards given there are over 300 existing unit standards will obviously take some time. We have started the work with development of a new set of core skill standards at levels 2, 3, and 4. These standards are – as their name would suggest – designed to provide core assessments in programmes of study leading to Health and Wellbeing qualifications.
The core skill standard work will be followed by the development of role-specific skill standards managed by the incoming Industry Skills Board, who will take over development and review functions of the Health and Wellbeing qualifications and standards on 1 January 2026.
The Core Skill Standards project took place through 2025 and involved extensive collaboration with industry, providers, and subject matter experts. This project resulted in the development of the following standards:
National consultation on the draft skill standards closed at the end of August 2025. We would like to thank everyone who shared their expertise, experiences, and perspectives during this process. Your feedback is helping ensure the standards reflect the needs of the sector. Summary of the feedback received can be found here.
We have developed comprehensive Guidance Notes to support providers who want to deliver programmes of study assessed by these skill standards. A copy of the draft guidance is available here.
Guidance notes for programme development will be finalised and published on the Community and Health Industry Skills Board website in the new year.
We greatly appreciate the contributions of all those who have participated in the development process to date.
These core standards aim to provide employers with a clear understanding of the capabilities they can expect from Health and Wellbeing graduates, while also supporting transferability of skills across a wide range of roles and settings. The role-specific skill standards that follow will build on this foundation, enabling the development of competencies tailored to particular roles and environments.
Development of role-specific skill standards will continue in 2026 under the new Community and Health Industry Skills Board, which assumes responsibility for Health and Wellbeing standards and qualifications from 1 January 2026.
Toitū te Waiora Workforce Development Council will be disestablished on 31 December 2025, with its final working day on Friday 19 December 2025. From 1 January 2026, responsibility for qualification development, product maintenance, and standard setting for the disability support sector will transfer to the EHC ISB.
For future enquiries please contact [email protected]
