GPNZ MONTHLY ACTIVITY SUMMARY – JULY 2023
KEY MEETINGS AND OUTCOMES
Over the month GPNZ leadership has engaged with a variety of key stakeholders and attended events including:
Launch of Health Workforce Plan Engagement: for Primary Care, Community Care, & Hauora Māori providers.
Andrew Slater, Chief People Officer at Te Whatu Ora – very productive meeting, clear recognition of the need to build, develop and support the primary care workforce and will work closely with GPNZ.
Meeting with Ricardo Menendez March, Greens health spokesperson who is new to the health portfolio – see advocacy/political engagement section.
ACC to talk about closer working relationship, including their primary and acute care review.
National Clinical Networks meeting with Justine Lancaster, Ajay Makal, Jo Scott-Jones and Mary Cleary-Lyons.
GenPro new Chair and CEO to discuss key priorities for general practice and future working together.
Federation of Primary Health – meet with board, attended member meeting.
HPV primary care screening team to assist with managing communication re delayed roll out.
Hauora Taiwhenua on the support being provided for international recruitment. Continuing to advocate with Te Whatu Ora for an expansion of the service to include the same support available to Te Whatu Ora employees and to include other roles as well as GPs.
Regular meetings with Te Whatu Ora primary care team.
Kaiāwhina working group and kaiāwhina advisory group meetings – work continuing on various areas including collecting data on roles and assessment and development of qualifications.
Sapere – see project section.
ADVOCACY
Nurse Pay Disparity
GPNZ continuing to liaise with the Te Whatu Ora team, fourth and final data collection is out now for practices who are yet to engage. Monitoring will begin in August.
Following the announcement of a further interim pay equity settlement for Te Whatu Ora employed nurses GPNZ, working via the General Practice Leaders’ Forum (GPLF) wrote to the Minister, emphasising that while it was pleasing to see the substantial pay offer made to Te Whatu Ora employed nurses, it raises questions and concerns about the commitment to pay parity for nurses working in primary care. The letter outlined the sectors continued expectation to bring primary care nurses up to parity with current Te Whatu Ora rates as soon as possible.
Discussion on next steps on parity/equity for primary and community nurses in on the agenda for the upcoming GPLF meeting.
Future of PHOs Working Group
Responses to the earlier GPNZ PHO questionnaire have been summarised into a document titled Te Puawāitanga o te Hāpori
Te Puawāitanga o te Hāpori was supplied to key officials from Te Whatu Ora, Te Aka Whai Ora and Manatū Haoura in advance of a meeting arranged for 31 July.
The document will be published online in the next issue of the Pānui. It has also been circulated to all major political parties, and other key sector stakeholders.
A group of leaders from GPNZ membership (see below) will meet with leaders from Te Whatu Ora, Te Aka Whai Ora and Manatū Hauora and the Māori PHOs on 31 July for preliminary discussion on the future of PHOs.
Membership of this group includes PHO reps, GPNZ and Ngā Matapihi o te Wairua:
o Northland: Barb Stevens and Paul Roseman
o Midland: Justin Butcher and Greig Deans
o Central: Mike Grant and Justine Thorpe
o Southern: Andrew Swanson Dobbs and Sara Shaughnessy.
o Ngā Matapihi o te Wairua representation
o GPNZ: Maura Thompson and Bryan Betty.
Te Whatu Ora board member visits
Across late July and early August GPNZ has arranged for Dame Karen Poutasi to visit several PHOs and general practices. We expect other members of the board to attend some of these visits.
Political engagement
ACT Party (Brooke van Velden health spokesperson, Toni Severin health select committee member) contacted 4 July to follow up with the lack of action on DTCA in the Therapeutics Product Bill.
Labour Dr Tracey McLellan - Chair, Health Select Committee written to on 17 July to register GPNZ’s disappointment with select committee findings re direct to consumer advertising (DTCA) in the Therapeutics Product Bill.
A meeting between GPNZ leadership (Chair Bryan Betty and CEO Maura Thompson) was held with the Green Party health spokesperson Ricardo Menéndez March. He was very interested in primary care workforce and planned care. Other topics covered included direct to consumer advertising as part of the Therapeutics Bill and locality development. Very keen to have a good relationship with GPNZ and to engage with PHOs and practices.
A meeting between GPNZ leadership, Ngā Matapihi o te Wairua and Te Pāti Māori is being sought.
Received a letter from Minister Verrall relating to ongoing correspondence between the Minister’s office and GPNZ nurse leads which began in December 2022. The latest letter has been circulated to PHO CEOs, Nurse Leaders and GPNZ Executive, if you haven’t seen it and would like a copy please reach out to any member of the GPNZ team.
As a key activity from our advocacy plan GPNZ is planning a political panel which aims to feature representation from Labour, National, ACT, The Green Party and Te Pāti Māori. This event will be held online in the evening to allow for maximum participation from the primary care workforce.
o Note - a ‘save the date’ was circulated for 8 August.
o We have now shifted this to 23 August to secure more representation on the panel.
o If you already registered for the earlier date you do not need to re-register.
o Learn more and register.
Some health spokespeople are also booking time to speak with PHO CEOs during their regular meetings.
PROJECTS Sapere Report
Further development work is going into phase one of the document, which is due to be finalised shortly.
Once phase one is complete we expect to hold a GPNZ member discussion/workshop on the content/findings and to determine how to take the work forwards.