Source: New Zealand Parliament – Hansard
ORAL QUESTIONS
QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS
Question No. 1—Health
1. SARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam) to the Minister of Health: Is the Government working to embed community voices within the reformed health system; if so, how?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): Community voices will be heard in our health system through locality planning networks. This will be how communities, including iwi, work with health providers to have a say on what health services are provided for them and how they will be provided. A locality will be an area defined by geography and population and will offer a coherent basis to organise health services for the people who live and work there. Locality networks will be part of a collective of networks across the country that inform Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority on commissioning of health services, contributing to local plans that deliver for unique community needs and priorities within the national New Zealand health plan. The locality planning process will allow much greater coordination and collaboration between health service providers and communities to ensure the right mix of services are available on a basis suitable to the community.
Sarah Pallett: How will localities be determined?
SARAH PALLETT: There will be a range of criteria to help in determining how a locality is confirmed, including priority population groups, iwi boundaries, and local government boundaries. Once Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority have worked with communities to identify their localities, a locality commissioner or coordinator will be assigned to work with the community and providers to meet and talk about their priorities for local care. This targeted engagement will inform a locality plan that will be the basis on which local healthcare services are funded, and I expect all areas to be covered by July 2024.
Sarah Pallett: How will localities be set up?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: We’ve established the first nine areas for locality prototypes. These are Ōtara-Papatoetoe, Hauraki, Taupō Tūrangi, Wairoa, Whanganui, Porirua, West Coast, Eastern Bay of Plenty, and Horowhenua. The selection of these prototype localities had a strong emphasis on areas with rural, Māori, and Pacific populations. These are groups for whom services at present struggle to deliver on an equitable basis and they are a place to start as we continue to build back our health system better. More locality areas will be added over the next two years and, as I said in answer to the previous question, all of New Zealand will be covered by a locality by July 2024.
Nicola Grigg: What is his response to the chief executive of the New Zealand Rural General Practice Network, Dr Grant Davidson, who said, “We thought the situation was now so bad that the health of rural New Zealanders could no longer be ignored. We were obviously wrong!”?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I would say that Mr Davidson, in making those remarks—because the member hasn’t put a time on them—was talking about some time ago, probably more than five years ago.
Nicola Grigg: Why won’t he include rural communities as a priority population in the reformed health system?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Well, the responses to the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill resulted in submissions calling for roughly 20 different distinct plans. There will be one New Zealand health plan and a number of other strategies that will flow from that. But in the end, the most important thing at the moment is that rural communities who are completely shut out of any real voice in our health system will now have that voice in a much stronger way through locality planning networks. And that’s why the first nine locality prototypes we’ve set up have a very strong emphasis on rural communities.
