Annual Report for the year ended 30 June 2000

Annual Report for the year ended 30 June 2000
Director-General’s Report

Date of publication: October 2000

1999/2000 Key Result Areas
The Ministry undertook work in two different sets of key result areas and milestone projects in the 1999/2000 financial year. The first set covered the period 1 July 1999 to 31 December 1999 and was agreed to by the former Minister of Health, the Rt Hon Wyatt Creech. The second set covered the period 1 January 2000 to 30 June 2000 and was agreed to by the current Minister of Health, the Hon Annette King.

The second set of key result areas encompassed the following:

The strategy for health and disability support services; acknowledging the special relationship between Māori and the Crown; disparities in health status; Strengthening Families; improving mental health; managing health and disability sector performance; acceptable, accessible health and disability support services; disability support services; workforce development; and Ministry capability. Thirty-eight of the 39 key result area milestone projects were completed within the required time frame, with one milestone project (KRA 2b) being superseded by work being undertaken as part of the Closing the Gaps work programme.

The Ministry has provided extensive advice on policies to implement the Government ’s proposed health sector changes. Advice has been provided on the introduction of the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Bill, the establishment of District Health Boards (DHBs), the election of members to the DHBs and the development of the New Zealand Health Strategy and the New Zealand Disability Strategy. Discussion documents on the New Zealand

Health Strategy and the New Zealand Disability Strategy were prepared this year. The strategies set the platform for the Government ’s programme of change; they aim to ensure that health and disability services are directed at those areas that will ensure the most benefit for the New Zealand population, focusing in particular on tackling inequalities in health. They address goals and objectives as well as service priorities.

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
New Zealand became a signatory to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in November 1996.Under Article I of the Treaty, each State undertakes not to carry out any weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion, and to prevent nuclear explosions at any place under its jurisdiction or control. An international monitoring system is being set up to monitor and verify compliance with the Treaty. New Zealand has installed and manages two radionuclide stations in the Chatham Islands and Kaitaia and will later host an infrasound station on the Chatham Islands. New Zealand will also assume responsibility for the installation and management of a station on the Cook Islands. The Minister of Health, through the Ministry ’s National Radiation Laboratory is responsible for the installation and operation of the three radionuclide stations and the infrasound station. New Zealand and Australia were the first countries in the world to have operative international monitoring stations within the International Monitoring System.

Ministry Organisational Design
The year 1999/2000 saw the development and implementation from 1 July 2000 of a new directorate structure for the Ministry of Health. The new organisational design of the Ministry combines the advantages of the service-based and function-based approaches. There are nine directorates, each led by a Deputy Director-General. The directorates are as follows:

Sector Policy
Public Health
Disability Issues
Mental Health
Personal and Family Services
Sector Funding and Performance
Māori Health
Corporate and Information.

Details of the responsibilities of these new directorates can be found in pages 7 –10 of the 2000/01 Departmental Forecast Report. From 1 August 2000, Hospital Monitoring, formerly part of CCMAU (Crown Company Monitoring Advisory Unit), transferred to the Ministry of Health to become the ninth directorate.

Karen O Poutasi (Dr)
Director-General of Health
Ministry of Health

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