Media Release

8 August 2007

Health Targets: Challenge and Opportunity

Health targets offer a significant opportunity to improve the health of all New Zealanders, Director-General of Health Stephen McKernan said.

Mr McKernan welcomed the launch today of ten health target areas for the current year which will help us measure progress towards achieving the Government’s priority areas for health improvement.

The selection of the specific targets within the Government's priority areas was based on the principle that achieving the targets will help achieve better health in these areas.

"We know that there is enough detailed information available to allow that performance to be measured."

Many targets are directly influenced by DHBs as either funder or provider of services in their local area. Some targets require concerted action by the Ministry, DHBs and other providers (eg, non-governmental organisations).

"We know the targets overall will be a challenge to DHBs, despite instances within some DHBs, where parts of the targets have already been met.

For the majority of the targets DHBs will be critical to achieving them and the Ministry will be working with them to help make them more effective.

We believe it important to have a core set of targets over a 3–5-year period that does not change so that we can both get traction and measure progress consistently.

The targets and indicators will be looked at annually to ensure they reflect the important health priorities of the day.

Over time as information and service developments improve, we will be able to identify more specific indicators for those population groups with disproportionately poorer health such as Maori, Pacific, low income groups and people living with disabilities.

ENDS

Related information

For further information, please contact Peter Abernethy , +64 4 496 2008