The primary health care system faces significant challenges in ensuring access and quality of care for all New Zealanders, including:
Workforce
- We have a worsening GP shortage, nursing retention issues from pay disparities, workforce burnout >40%, and constrained use of the wider clinical workforce.
Clinical administration
- The burden of clinical administration is impacting on the time available for patient consultations.
Enrolment barriers
- An estimated 34% of general practices have closed books.
Cost
- In 2023 about half a million New Zealanders didn’t use a GP service because of cost barriers – this is worse for Māori & Pacific people
Waiting times
- About 1 million New Zealanders didn’t use a GP service because of long waiting times for an appointment
Capitation
- Funding that has fallen behind costs and that requires better targeting.
Scale
- New models and innovations exist but there are few mechanisms to scale them up to have national impact.
Digital support
- Patient management systems that lack modern interoperability features.
Addressing these challenges is crucial for improving population health and achieving equity in health outcomes across New Zealand.
We also know there are great strengths across the teams and people that deliver primary care services and the communities they serve.
Despite the challenges, many people continue to experience person centred, caring and clinically excellent care every day from primary care professionals across the motu. Around 95% of New Zealanders are enrolled with a general practice, and GP teams (including urgent care teams) deliver over 24 million encounters per year.
Together we need to draw on those strengths, address the challenges and ensure everyone can receive the care they deserve.