Hato Hone St John is not concerned that ambulances will become "mobile pharmacies" when paramedics are able to prescribe medicines.
Health Minister Simeon Brown has announced that paramedics who have been trained to do so will be able to prescribe from a list of 232 medicines covering common infections and treatments needed in urgent and community care, and issue repeat prescriptions from the list for long-term conditions.
The list of medicines was sensible, the ambulance service's deputy chief executive of clinical services Jon Moores said.
"It reflects a need both in what paramedics are likely to see out there in the community but also more broadly making sure we do this in a way that's safe."
Paramedic practice would benefit from the move, which came with safeguards such as postgraduate-level training, certification, peer review, auditing, and medical director oversight, he said.
He was not expecting it to change the day-to-day workload.
"This will really be used by a small subset of specialist paramedics so there'll be a number that will go through the training, paramedics work in a range of different settings now, clinics, hospital, ambulance, tele-health.
"So it's great that they've got some additional tools and capabilities to be able to help them support patients."
The first paramedic prescribers are expected to begin practising from late 2027.
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