In an opinion piece published yesterday on Newsroom, The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners President Dr Samantha Murton and Medical Director Dr Luke
Bradford stressed that although our primary care teams are the ‘masters of pivot’ for how we can adapt to the changing
and diverse needs of our patients, the workforce has now "reached the limit of change without significant investment."
The announcement of $2.2 billion over the next four years for primary, community and public health care is welcomed in
principle by the College, along with the commitment of $5.5 billion from both the 2025 and 2026 Budgets which
acknowledges that the work we do to improve the health of New Zealanders is valued.
However, the College notes Te Whatu Ora’s report that was sent to the health minister in January this year saying that
the primary care sector requires a funding boost of between $353 million and 1.36 billion to address unmet need. The
funding announcement today is not enough to meet this requirement.
College President and Wellington GP Dr Samantha Murton says, "We challenged the Government to have the courage to invest
more in primary care and in the health of New Zealanders. What we saw today was step in the right direction, but we
would have like to have heard more specifics about exactly how the funding will address the well-documented issues we
have raised over the past few years.
"It is disappointing to once again see the biggest slice of funding going to hospital services, instead of being
reprioritised into primary care. You cannot prevent someone from being hospitalised once they are already in hospital,
it needs to be prevented in the community and in primary care."
The Newsroom opinion piece reminded readers that although this sounds like a big job, it is what primary care is meant
to do; diagnose, treat and prevent illness in the community and closer to home.
College Medical Director and Tauranga GP Dr Luke Bradford says, "We’ll be looking to Health Minister Dr Shane Reti to
provide further detail on how this $2.2 billion will be split between primary and community care, public health and
increased breast screening services, so we can understand how it will actually impact specialist GPs, rural hospital
doctors, our communities and patients."
The College looks forward to working with Minister Reti and our primary care colleagues to work through how and when
this funding can be used to both sustain and grow the workforce and provide patients with greater access to our services
right across Aotearoa.