Health of Older People StrategyHealth Sector Action to 2010 to Support Positive Ageing
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Date of publication: April 2002page 1 of 15 This is the full text online version of this document.
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Contents
Foreword
E nga iwi, e nga reo, e nga karangatanga maha o nga hau e wha - tenei te mihi atu ki a koutou katoa. Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.
To all people, all voices, all the many relations from the four winds, greetings to you all.
New Zealand, like most other countries, has an ageing population. From around 2010 the number of older people will start to grow more rapidly as the baby boom generation enters retirement. We want sustainable health and disability support services that can meet the needs of current and future generations of older people and support them to age positively. That means starting to plan those services now, so that the structures and funding are in place by 2010.
The Health of Older People Strategy sets out the government's policy for the future direction of heatlh and disability support services for older people. It provides a vision of older people participating fully in decisions about their health and wellbeing and in social and community life. If health and disability support services are to play their part in enabling older people to live this vision, they need to focus much more on:
- working alongside older people as members of families, whanau and the community
- promoting wellness and quality of life to assist older people to age positively
- working together to provide an integrated continuum of care so that an older person is able to access needed services at the right time, in the right place and from the right provider
- providing community-level health care and disability support to enable older people to 'age in place'
- planning for culturally appropriate services to meet the increasing diversity of older people.
The Ministry of Health has already commenced its work programme to support implementation of the strategy, and several District Health Boards have begun planning for integrating services for older people. The level of enthusiasm and support in the sector for beginning the work set out in the Health of Older People Strategy is very encouraging and bodes well for future services for our ageing population.
Acknowledgements
Development of the Health of Older People Strategy has involved valued input from a wide range of individuals, groups and organisations. The advice and assistance from the following members of the expert advisory group is particularly acknowledged:
Dr Jill Calveley, Lorna Dyall, Dr Keith Gibb, Pam Greenaway, Dr Margaret Guthrie, Dr Carl Hanger, Dr Sally Keeling, Dr Pam Melding, Dr Verna Schofield, and Margaret Southwick.
Special thanks are also due to:
- Matthew Parsons, who worked closely with the Ministry of Health on identifying evidence and examples of innovative practice
- Age Concern New Zealand, for organising many of the public consultation meetings
- members of the sector review group who commented on an early version of the draft strategy that was distributed for public comment
- individuals and representatives of organisations who participated in public meetings or made written submissions.
A copy of the summary of analysis of submissions on the consultation draft of the Health of Older People Strategy is available below in PDF format or on request from:
Health of Older People Strategy
Ministry of Health
P O Box 5013
Wellington
Tel: 04 496 2482
Fax: 04 496 2010
Analysis of Submissions (PDF, 213 kB)
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Health of Older People Strategy: Health Sector Action to 2010 to Support Positive Ageing (PDF, 464 kB)
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