One of the country’s most influential GPs is flagging an issue with the health system’s focus.
Dr Bryan Betty signing off as General Practice NZ Chair this week after more than three years in the role to join the Health NZ Board.
He believes New Zealand has reached a pivotal moment in how it plans and delivers healthcare.
Betty told Kerre Woodham that conversations around healthcare often centre around emergency departments and hospitals, while the primary care system and general practices receive little focus.
He says early intervention, and access to it, is absolutely critical going forward.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the carry Wood and Morning's podcast from
News Talks. He'd be.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
One of New Zealand's most influential GPS is warning the
health system is too focused on hospitals and not enough
on primary care. Doctor Brian Betty, who you may have
heard on the show before, is signing off as General
Practice New Zealand chair this week and is about to
join the Health New Zealand Board. Believes New Zealand has
reached a pivotal moment and how it plans and delivers healthcare.
(00:35):
Dr Brian Betty joins me now a very good morning
to you.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Good morning, Carrie, nice to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Why on earth talk about frying pan fire? What sort
of sucker for punishment are you to go?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
On the Health New Zealand Board.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Look, I think you know, New Zealand's been through quite
a quite a road the last few years in terms
of reforms and where we're at. I think this system
is sort of starting to settle down a bit and
start to look forward, I think as to what.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Happens next over the next five to ten years.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
And I think we're at a really really important junction
to think about what type of health system we want
and what that looks like in five to ten years time.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
So yeah, come up for the challenge.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, good on you. And it is not only have
there been a lot of changes within the way health
is delivered, there's also been a lot of changes within
the health field itself. Like we were talking just was
it only yesterday the day before about we're goovi or
the different you know, fat jabs, and so many people
(01:41):
rang in to say that they'd lost fifteen kilos. They
weren't taking medication for cholesterol, they were Some of them
had given up smoking because it stops other cravings, lessen
the drinking. Should we be looking more at prevention rather
than cure?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Oh, look, I think we have to.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
And that's one of my points about we often end
up talking about emergency departments, we talk about hospitals, and
these are incredibly, incredibly important aspects of our health system.
What we don't talk a lot about is the primary
care system, the community system in general practice and that
prevention of problems and what actually happens. So things like
(02:19):
access to a GOV for weight loss, for instance, that
occurs in the community. It's community access to medical care
that does that. And yes, you're right if you can
lose weight with a medication like that, which has a
number of other positive benefits, then you reduce the problems
down the track, and that lessens the pressure on emergency
(02:39):
departments and hospital So everything is connected. So prevention or
early intervention and access to that I think is absolutely
critical for our health system going forward.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I think I heard and I'm sure it had been
explained before, but doctor Retti when he was Minister for
Health talking about that continuum of healthcare and that if
one bit gets clogged or jammed, then everything gets clogged.
And so if you've got the gps who are overworked,
veeds become overworked, if you haven't got the community care
(03:12):
for people when they need to come out of the hospital,
then round we go again.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
That's exactly what we see.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
So in those areas of the country where we do
have general practice shortages or GP shortages, we see increased
pressure on emergency departments and hospitals, and that's very very
well documented. But the actual same thing happens. So if
you don't get access to the hospital because it is
it is full or the waiting lists are full, then
that falls back on the general practice and again back
(03:42):
on the community and it just it becomes a bit
of a closed loop and problems start to compound. So yeah,
it's really really important that we think of the whole
system and how one part will affect another, because that's
always always a way. And as I've said, often we
see these reports about emergency departments and what are happening
that they're like the canary and the mind. It's just
(04:04):
a it's a symptom of where pressures are building up
in the system, and we need to think about how
to lead those pressures. And certainly, my belief, having been
around this for a number of years, is that primary
care and general practice, having access to quality general practice
is absolutely critical to early intervention and prevention to take
that pressure off those other services.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Well, when you talk about quality GP, it's changed. The
field of general practice has changed so much. I used
to have the same GP for years and years and years,
and they knew everything about you. They took a holistic
view to health. Now it's been brought out by a chain.
(04:48):
Most of them only worked two to three days a week.
The GPS. I haven't seen this. I changed. I've recently
changed practices. They couldn't give me a prescription and emergency
prescription for asthma. But if I'm paid to do a
telephone consult they could. You know, I'm not sure that
(05:11):
you as a lovely GP. And the few remaining lovely
gps that no families and you know, and no, no, no,
the family know everybody. I think that the days of
doctor Finley's casebook are long gone.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Look, perhaps that's the case.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
What's really interesting about what you've just said is the
absolute truth of what you've just said. So there's huge
international data and research on this that if you have
continuity and by that I mean seen the same primary
care practitioner over time, what the studies show is you
have less ed admissions, you have less hospital admissions, and
(05:49):
you actually live longer. Big big study out of Norway
two and a half million patients showed that.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
So this is what I mean.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
So what you're reflecting there is some changes that have
started to occur in the system. And look, it's not
general that you know, there's still a lot of a
lot of general practices. You will end up seeing your
own doctor for want of a better word. But we
need to start to think about what exactly it is
we need in the system going forward and how do
we incentivize or make.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Or ensure that we go down that path.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
This issue of continuity has talked about a lot in
the general practice sector, and it's a really really important
concept because again you've tapped into it if every time
you see someone new you have to just recount your
whole history and sort of go back over it.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
And they complain they don't have enough time with patients,
But if you're giving them and as I'm getting older,
there's more and more to tell, you know, it's like
you've wasted half the appointment just filling them in and
you don't remember everything.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
You know that, Yeah, and those are some of the
problems we've seen. Because we do have an aging population,
we do have no more complexity. General practices is expected
to do more. So these issues around continuity I think
are pretty pretty core to what we want the system
to move two or reorientate too. And so this this
(07:09):
comes down to, I suppose my thinking about this is about, well,
where are we going to be in five years, where
are we going to be in ten years in terms
of the type of high quality general practice we want
in this country? And that that I think is a
really really important question.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
For the system.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I don't think they can be unbought though, can they?
Like when you've got those GP practices that are being
swallowed up by the you know, the huge supermarket style
GP practice companies, then they can't be unbought, can they.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
A Look, the corporate ownership is part of the environment
we have in New Zealand. I think more the issue.
If you look, I think about fifteen percent of of
general practice across New Zealand as corporately owned now, so
so that that that that's fine and look, I mean
and that is an important part of the system. However,
I think we've got to think ahead and sort of say, look,
(08:01):
do we want fifty percent one hundred percent of the
sector to be corporately owned or do we need to
ensure that we have choice for patients that they can
choose where to go to that they can still choose
to see a general practitioner or a GP a at
a practice owned ownership practice where the GP has ownership
and they have continuity or not. And I think that
(08:24):
issue of choice for the patient is really really important
in the system, so that patients can have access, but
they have access to choice and they have access to
where they choose to get their care because it delivers
for them. So what you've just said, Kerry, if you
need to see a GP, then you want to see
a GP the same one over time.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
You have the ability to do that.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
And I think that that is perhaps one of the
things we're starting to miss in the system.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
We really are and how do we change that. I mean,
a labour's three GP visits per person throughout the country
going to change anything. Look, I wouldn't have thought there
were the GPS available to give that kind of service.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Well, there's issues around workforce. We know that we do
have a GP workforce shortage at this point. There are
issues about what that would look like in practice, which
which hasn't been detailed yet, so we'd wait to see
what rolled out there. Yeah, I think the answer to
the question is we need to think very hard about
the stability of general practice, how we encourage clinical ownership,
(09:24):
because I think that's the key to it. So having
gps or nurses that own practices, are committed to the practices,
are committed to their locality and the population they serve
is really really important. So that concept of skin the game,
I think is very very important. And we know that
again from studies that where that does exist, that you
(09:44):
do get improvement in terms of quality and what actually occurs.
So yeah, I think these issues are actually really important.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
What about people's trust in the healthcare system, because you know,
I've heard from people working in hospitals that they will
send invitation to people to come for bellel screening or
breasts screening, or the GPS referred them to a specialist appointment.
There's a van that will go and pick up the
(10:16):
people to bring them to the appointments. They still choose
not to come. I mean, you can lead a horse
to water, but you can't make it drink. How do
you instill and inspire or regain trust in the system.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Look, that's a good question. Look, one of the things
I would say, I think we do hear a lot
of negativity around the health system. You know, you hear
about eds being overflowing, hospitals being full work for short.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
As a general.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Practice, I think we still fundamentally have a very good
medical system in New Zealand And for the majority of
the population. And my worry is that over time that
starts to ebb away, and we've got to be very
very careful about that I think. The other thing, I'd
say it's very big. So if you look at the
(11:04):
health system in New Zealand, I mean the spend on
is about thirty two billion dollars a year. It's ten
percent of GDP. It's the biggest employer in terms of
one hundred thousand across the country. Just in general practice alone.
The consultations we know about are twenty three million a year.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
We're going to take a break here otherwise the ads
will come crashing in on us and be back with
Dr Brian Betty very very shortly. We're talking to Dr
Brian Betty, former Chair of General Practice New Zealand, joining
the Board of Health New Zealand as of tomorrow. So
it's our last chance where he can speak freely. Tony says.
Dr Brian Betty is a fantastic advocate for better healthcare.
(11:41):
It's great you'll have a voice on the Health New
Zealand Board.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
So we'd got to the point were used to bear
twenty three million visits to GPS.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Yeah, yeah, contacts with GPS, so and that's all all
we track.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
There's a lot more that goes on. So I suppose
my point it's.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
A very very large, very complex system in New Zealand,
and I think for the majority of people they do
get very good care. We know there's problems with disparity
with Mari Pacific outcomes. We know there's there's problems in
the system, and that there is, and we tend to
focus on that, but there is I think we do
(12:18):
have a very good system and we need to maintain
that and we need to be focused on how we
improve it and how we move it forward and some
of the issues you talked about in terms of access
and quality and you know, continuity, those things we really
need to discuss as a society about what we want
going forward.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
So as you join the Health New Zealand Board, what
do you hope to achieve during your time there? What
will you be focused on?
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Oh look, you know my background, My expertise is obviously
primary care and general practice and community care. I think
for me, the big challenge here is to really start
to think of the system as one system. I mean,
I think what did happen over the reforms. Things tend
to silo that hospitals or hospitals, EDS or EDS, general practices,
(13:05):
general and as we talked about, everything is connected. So
For me, it's starting to think about as this idea
of a continuum of one system and how we actually
strengthen each part of those systems so that people do
get choice, they get access to quality care when they
need it and how they need it, and they get
access to preventative care as well. For me, those are
(13:27):
really key issues we need to be focused on and
thinking about.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
And are we training sufficient gps to meet future demand?
Well the nurse practitioners. Has that helped, you know, fill
the gap?
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Oh, there's definitely diversification in terms of roles nurse practitioners,
prescribing nurses, extending care, paramedics and general practice. We're seen
that start to evolve, but we do need more general practitioners.
So the numbers through a Targo and Auckland through medical
school have been increased. We know we have the Waikato
Medical School coming online which is going to have a
(14:01):
focus on rural and general practice.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Which I think is a positive.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
So those things, however, I suppose my comment is that
though for that to occur, I mean we're looking at
four to five years down the track for those graduates
start to come through, and those graduates need to start
to choose general practice is a positive place to be,
to work in the community, to actually actually do the
work in the community. So I think, you know, general
(14:27):
practice is a fantastic career. It's a fantastic thing to do,
and we don't talk about that enough and it's very
satisfying career. So we need more of those medical graduates
coming through choosing general practice.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
I couldn't think of a better advocate for general practice.
Thank you very much for your service doctor Betty over
the years. Thank you for your availability over the years
as well, and I wish you the very best of
luck and good times and good outcomes on the Health
New Zealand Board.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Okay, I think that thanks very much. Carrying, thank you
for the chance to have a chat.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
News Talk Thered b It is six to eleven.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
For more from Kerry Wood and Morning, listen live to
News Talks at B from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the carry Wood and Morning's podcast from
News Talks. He'd be.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
One of New Zealand's most influential GPS is warning the
health system is too focused on hospitals and not enough
on primary care. Doctor Brian Betty, who you may have
heard on the show before, is signing off as General
Practice New Zealand chair this week and is about to
join the Health New Zealand Board. Believes New Zealand has
reached a pivotal moment and how it plans and delivers healthcare.
(00:35):
Dr Brian Betty joins me now a very good morning
to you.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Good morning, Carrie, nice to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Why on earth talk about frying pan fire? What sort
of sucker for punishment are you to go?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
On the Health New Zealand Board.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Look, I think you know, New Zealand's been through quite
a quite a road the last few years in terms
of reforms and where we're at. I think this system
is sort of starting to settle down a bit and
start to look forward, I think as to what.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Happens next over the next five to ten years.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
And I think we're at a really really important junction
to think about what type of health system we want
and what that looks like in five to ten years time.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
So yeah, come up for the challenge.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, good on you. And it is not only have
there been a lot of changes within the way health
is delivered, there's also been a lot of changes within
the health field itself. Like we were talking just was
it only yesterday the day before about we're goovi or
the different you know, fat jabs, and so many people
(01:41):
rang in to say that they'd lost fifteen kilos. They
weren't taking medication for cholesterol, they were Some of them
had given up smoking because it stops other cravings, lessen
the drinking. Should we be looking more at prevention rather
than cure?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Oh, look, I think we have to.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
And that's one of my points about we often end
up talking about emergency departments, we talk about hospitals, and
these are incredibly, incredibly important aspects of our health system.
What we don't talk a lot about is the primary
care system, the community system in general practice and that
prevention of problems and what actually happens. So things like
(02:19):
access to a GOV for weight loss, for instance, that
occurs in the community. It's community access to medical care
that does that. And yes, you're right if you can
lose weight with a medication like that, which has a
number of other positive benefits, then you reduce the problems
down the track, and that lessens the pressure on emergency
(02:39):
departments and hospital So everything is connected. So prevention or
early intervention and access to that I think is absolutely
critical for our health system going forward.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I think I heard and I'm sure it had been
explained before, but doctor Retti when he was Minister for
Health talking about that continuum of healthcare and that if
one bit gets clogged or jammed, then everything gets clogged.
And so if you've got the gps who are overworked,
veeds become overworked, if you haven't got the community care
(03:12):
for people when they need to come out of the hospital,
then round we go again.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
That's exactly what we see.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
So in those areas of the country where we do
have general practice shortages or GP shortages, we see increased
pressure on emergency departments and hospitals, and that's very very
well documented. But the actual same thing happens. So if
you don't get access to the hospital because it is
it is full or the waiting lists are full, then
that falls back on the general practice and again back
(03:42):
on the community and it just it becomes a bit
of a closed loop and problems start to compound. So yeah,
it's really really important that we think of the whole
system and how one part will affect another, because that's
always always a way. And as I've said, often we
see these reports about emergency departments and what are happening
that they're like the canary and the mind. It's just
(04:04):
a it's a symptom of where pressures are building up
in the system, and we need to think about how
to lead those pressures. And certainly, my belief, having been
around this for a number of years, is that primary
care and general practice, having access to quality general practice
is absolutely critical to early intervention and prevention to take
that pressure off those other services.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Well, when you talk about quality GP, it's changed. The
field of general practice has changed so much. I used
to have the same GP for years and years and years,
and they knew everything about you. They took a holistic
view to health. Now it's been brought out by a chain.
(04:48):
Most of them only worked two to three days a week.
The GPS. I haven't seen this. I changed. I've recently
changed practices. They couldn't give me a prescription and emergency
prescription for asthma. But if I'm paid to do a
telephone consult they could. You know, I'm not sure that
(05:11):
you as a lovely GP. And the few remaining lovely
gps that no families and you know, and no, no, no,
the family know everybody. I think that the days of
doctor Finley's casebook are long gone.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Look, perhaps that's the case.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
What's really interesting about what you've just said is the
absolute truth of what you've just said. So there's huge
international data and research on this that if you have
continuity and by that I mean seen the same primary
care practitioner over time, what the studies show is you
have less ed admissions, you have less hospital admissions, and
(05:49):
you actually live longer. Big big study out of Norway
two and a half million patients showed that.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
So this is what I mean.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
So what you're reflecting there is some changes that have
started to occur in the system. And look, it's not
general that you know, there's still a lot of a
lot of general practices. You will end up seeing your
own doctor for want of a better word. But we
need to start to think about what exactly it is
we need in the system going forward and how do
we incentivize or make.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Or ensure that we go down that path.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
This issue of continuity has talked about a lot in
the general practice sector, and it's a really really important
concept because again you've tapped into it if every time
you see someone new you have to just recount your
whole history and sort of go back over it.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
And they complain they don't have enough time with patients,
But if you're giving them and as I'm getting older,
there's more and more to tell, you know, it's like
you've wasted half the appointment just filling them in and
you don't remember everything.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
You know that, Yeah, and those are some of the
problems we've seen. Because we do have an aging population,
we do have no more complexity. General practices is expected
to do more. So these issues around continuity I think
are pretty pretty core to what we want the system
to move two or reorientate too. And so this this
(07:09):
comes down to, I suppose my thinking about this is about, well,
where are we going to be in five years, where
are we going to be in ten years in terms
of the type of high quality general practice we want
in this country? And that that I think is a
really really important question.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
For the system.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I don't think they can be unbought though, can they?
Like when you've got those GP practices that are being
swallowed up by the you know, the huge supermarket style
GP practice companies, then they can't be unbought, can they.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
A Look, the corporate ownership is part of the environment
we have in New Zealand. I think more the issue.
If you look, I think about fifteen percent of of
general practice across New Zealand as corporately owned now, so
so that that that that's fine and look, I mean
and that is an important part of the system. However,
I think we've got to think ahead and sort of say, look,
(08:01):
do we want fifty percent one hundred percent of the
sector to be corporately owned or do we need to
ensure that we have choice for patients that they can
choose where to go to that they can still choose
to see a general practitioner or a GP a at
a practice owned ownership practice where the GP has ownership
and they have continuity or not. And I think that
(08:24):
issue of choice for the patient is really really important
in the system, so that patients can have access, but
they have access to choice and they have access to
where they choose to get their care because it delivers
for them. So what you've just said, Kerry, if you
need to see a GP, then you want to see
a GP the same one over time.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
You have the ability to do that.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
And I think that that is perhaps one of the
things we're starting to miss in the system.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
We really are and how do we change that. I mean,
a labour's three GP visits per person throughout the country
going to change anything. Look, I wouldn't have thought there
were the GPS available to give that kind of service.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Well, there's issues around workforce. We know that we do
have a GP workforce shortage at this point. There are
issues about what that would look like in practice, which
which hasn't been detailed yet, so we'd wait to see
what rolled out there. Yeah, I think the answer to
the question is we need to think very hard about
the stability of general practice, how we encourage clinical ownership,
(09:24):
because I think that's the key to it. So having
gps or nurses that own practices, are committed to the practices,
are committed to their locality and the population they serve
is really really important. So that concept of skin the game,
I think is very very important. And we know that
again from studies that where that does exist, that you
(09:44):
do get improvement in terms of quality and what actually occurs.
So yeah, I think these issues are actually really important.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
What about people's trust in the healthcare system, because you know,
I've heard from people working in hospitals that they will
send invitation to people to come for bellel screening or
breasts screening, or the GPS referred them to a specialist appointment.
There's a van that will go and pick up the
(10:16):
people to bring them to the appointments. They still choose
not to come. I mean, you can lead a horse
to water, but you can't make it drink. How do
you instill and inspire or regain trust in the system.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Look, that's a good question. Look, one of the things
I would say, I think we do hear a lot
of negativity around the health system. You know, you hear
about eds being overflowing, hospitals being full work for short.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
As a general.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Practice, I think we still fundamentally have a very good
medical system in New Zealand And for the majority of
the population. And my worry is that over time that
starts to ebb away, and we've got to be very
very careful about that I think. The other thing, I'd
say it's very big. So if you look at the
(11:04):
health system in New Zealand, I mean the spend on
is about thirty two billion dollars a year. It's ten
percent of GDP. It's the biggest employer in terms of
one hundred thousand across the country. Just in general practice alone.
The consultations we know about are twenty three million a year.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
We're going to take a break here otherwise the ads
will come crashing in on us and be back with
Dr Brian Betty very very shortly. We're talking to Dr
Brian Betty, former Chair of General Practice New Zealand, joining
the Board of Health New Zealand as of tomorrow. So
it's our last chance where he can speak freely. Tony says.
Dr Brian Betty is a fantastic advocate for better healthcare.
(11:41):
It's great you'll have a voice on the Health New
Zealand Board.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
So we'd got to the point were used to bear
twenty three million visits to GPS.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Yeah, yeah, contacts with GPS, so and that's all all
we track.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
There's a lot more that goes on. So I suppose
my point it's.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
A very very large, very complex system in New Zealand,
and I think for the majority of people they do
get very good care. We know there's problems with disparity
with Mari Pacific outcomes. We know there's there's problems in
the system, and that there is, and we tend to
focus on that, but there is I think we do
(12:18):
have a very good system and we need to maintain
that and we need to be focused on how we
improve it and how we move it forward and some
of the issues you talked about in terms of access
and quality and you know, continuity, those things we really
need to discuss as a society about what we want
going forward.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
So as you join the Health New Zealand Board, what
do you hope to achieve during your time there? What
will you be focused on?
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Oh look, you know my background, My expertise is obviously
primary care and general practice and community care. I think
for me, the big challenge here is to really start
to think of the system as one system. I mean,
I think what did happen over the reforms. Things tend
to silo that hospitals or hospitals, EDS or EDS, general practices,
(13:05):
general and as we talked about, everything is connected. So
For me, it's starting to think about as this idea
of a continuum of one system and how we actually
strengthen each part of those systems so that people do
get choice, they get access to quality care when they
need it and how they need it, and they get
access to preventative care as well. For me, those are
(13:27):
really key issues we need to be focused on and
thinking about.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
And are we training sufficient gps to meet future demand?
Well the nurse practitioners. Has that helped, you know, fill
the gap?
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Oh, there's definitely diversification in terms of roles nurse practitioners,
prescribing nurses, extending care, paramedics and general practice. We're seen
that start to evolve, but we do need more general practitioners.
So the numbers through a Targo and Auckland through medical
school have been increased. We know we have the Waikato
Medical School coming online which is going to have a
(14:01):
focus on rural and general practice.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Which I think is a positive.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
So those things, however, I suppose my comment is that
though for that to occur, I mean we're looking at
four to five years down the track for those graduates
start to come through, and those graduates need to start
to choose general practice is a positive place to be,
to work in the community, to actually actually do the
work in the community. So I think, you know, general
(14:27):
practice is a fantastic career. It's a fantastic thing to do,
and we don't talk about that enough and it's very
satisfying career. So we need more of those medical graduates
coming through choosing general practice.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
I couldn't think of a better advocate for general practice.
Thank you very much for your service doctor Betty over
the years. Thank you for your availability over the years
as well, and I wish you the very best of
luck and good times and good outcomes on the Health
New Zealand Board.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Okay, I think that thanks very much. Carrying, thank you
for the chance to have a chat.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
News Talk Thered b It is six to eleven.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
For more from Kerry Wood and Morning, listen live to
News Talks at B from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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