The Government has released its first policy statement on the health system, and what it is wanting it to deliver and achieve over the period of 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2027. The statement introduces targets for health and mental health that re intended to focus the system on the concrete outcomes it needs to deliver improved health outcomes for New Zealanders. The statement is to be supplemented by the New Zealand Health Plan – a three year costed plan by Health New Zealand around delivery of those objectives.

This article provides a high-level summary of the policy, its objectives, and the expected changes:

Priorities 

The statement sets out that the focus over the next three years is on improvements in three priority areas being:

1. Access: ensuring that every person regardless of where they live in New Zealand, has equitable access to the health care services they need.
2. Timeliness: ensuring that people can access the health care and service, when they need it, in a prompt and efficient way.
3. Quality: ensuring delivered health care and services are safe, easy to navigate, understandable and welcoming to users, and are continuously improving.

A number of targets are set out in relation to the above priorities, including faster cancer treatment, better immunisation rates, and shorter wait times for ED, specialist appointments, and elective surgery.  There are further targets in relation to mental health, addiction, and suicide prevention.

The targets sit alongside accelerating action in relation to five non-communicable diseases being cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, diabetes and poor mental health.  Interestingly, together these conditions account for around 80% of deaths from non-communicable diseases in New Zealand.  The statement identified factors that need to be addressed if the impact of those diseases is to be reduced including: alcohol, tobacco, poor nutrition, physical inactivity, and adverse social and environmental factors.  

Expected changes

The statement identifies two further priority areas as “critical enablers for improving health services”, being workforce and infrastructure.  In that way, the Government recognises it is essential to address critical health workforce shortages and gaps, along with smart investment to maintain and develop the physical and digital infrastructure that supports an effective health system.

In relation to each of the priority areas, the statement sets out “changes expected over the next three years” as well as indicators, measures, and expectations for those entities that are required to give effect to the statement.  With respect to workforce, the statement recognises the need to expand domestic training pathways and continue to bring skilled overseas health care workers into New Zealand to meet pressing needs. It also acknowledges the need to retain the health workforce and incentivise work within all communities and settings.  The statement indicates that these changes will require partnership with education agencies and providers, health regulators, health agencies and entities, employers, and local communities.  

Who is required to give effect to the statement?

Four entities are required to give effect to the policy statement: Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora, the Health Quality and Safety Commission, Pharmaceutical Management Agency (Pharmac), and the New Zealand Blood and Organ Service.  The policy statement outlines how the success of those entities will be measured, monitored, and reported.  The four health entities are to report regularly against these measures and the Ministry of Health will report publicly on the results of these measures every year. 

Where to from here?

The Government has acknowledged in the statement that “[g]iven the range of challenges facing the health system, there is a limit to what changes the system can deliver over the next three years”.  In that regard, the statement says that the changes over the next three years are to prioritise the above key areas that improve outcomes while being feasible within resources and system capability.