November 29, 2025 • 10 mins
Labour leader Chris Hipkins has unveiled the party's first policy for next year's election - low-interest loans to support doctor-owned clinics.
The scheme will offer up to 50 ten year long loans a year for doctors or nurse practitioners to open or buy into local clinics, interest free for the first two years.
After announcing their policy of three free GP appointments a year, questions were raised around how our already overwhelmed health system could manage more appointments.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks.
I'd be so yes. Labor leader Chris Hipkins unveiled the
party's first policy for next year's election, low interest loans
to support doctor owned clinics. The scheme will offer up
to fifty ten year long loans a year for doctor
(00:27):
or nurse practitioners to open or buy into local clinics.
It's interest free for the first two years. After announcing
their policy of three free GP appointments a year, questions
are raised about how our health system will manage more appointments,
of course, but would this move be something or enough
to keep the system above water through potential changes. Anyway,
we're going to dig into it. The President of the
(00:49):
Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, Dr Luke Bradford
joins me. Now, Luke, good.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Afternoon, Good afternoon, sim How are you doing good?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Thanks? What do you reckon?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
What think you sir? A really positive acknowledgement that in
order to better serve the health system, you need a
function in primary care and to do that you need
the doctors to come into it. So this is a
step in the right direction to that.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
An acknowledgment. That doesn't sound like you're calling it a solution.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Ah, it's part of the solutions. We need to We
need to train more doctors. We know that there's been
some steps by the current government to do that, but
in order to attract those into training, we need to
make the profession better rewarding, more easily accessible. We need
to show people that they've got a place in business,
that the governments and that both sides of this political
(01:38):
spectrum will believe in the model of care and therefore
give it some security so people can make a decision
to make it their business and their livelihood and set
up in their communities.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
How short are we of GPS? If you could click
your fingers, how many more would you summon up?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Ah? Absolutely, immediately three hundred. In reality, it's probably near
a six hundred. If we do this extra these extra consults,
as per the labor thing, will be over that over
six hundred we'd need.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
How many do you think we've native with that policy?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Oh yeah, so over six hundred. And now.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
With the new policy of free GPS.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
We're already we're already short. Right, We're already short of
at least three hundred and that's what we're trying to,
you know, attract to. There are some things in this policy.
You know they talk about three enough appointments with efficiencies
and there's some stuff in that that can be done.
Good to see some ideas about investing in AI note
take in and support and practices to transfer over to.
(02:34):
Sorry about that, Yeah, I get phone trige.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I just didn't notice the thing except the sorry about that.
Actually just paid a picture for us. I imagine that
you have. You know, you've set up your own practice.
Can you tell us about the challenge of doing that
as a GP and and what stage in your career
did you do it?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, so I did it very early on as a
as a senior registrar. The practice I trained in had
an opportunity and I took a bank loan to do that.
Since then, the market shifted, that was a common way
of doing it. We've had the corporates arrive who bring
in venture capital money and start to make it very
(03:16):
difficult for junior doctors to access for kind of finances
they need to buy. So this acknowledges that things are
more expensive. It's been fantastic for me. We've we've built,
we've got a lovely practice, really successful team, multi disciplinary team,
and we sell on to our juniors. So we've had
two juniors buying in the last year.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
And is that something that was an easy sell for
you to say would you like to buy them? And
they go yes, thanks.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
To do you know? I mean they did? You know?
Depends on their position. Certainly one of them, young family,
three young kids, a mortgage, really did struggle to take
that leap. It's been the right decision for them, but
that we there had to be some real support to
get them there.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
What I actually what level of experience should you would
expect a doctor would start to look into investing into
owning their own practice.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, so yeah, you come out of medical school, you
do five years further training and then at about that
point you may start to be thinking where am I
settling down and my business minded? So probably early thirties,
mid thirties.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
The as the big concern really around how making access
easier for health and GP appointments is the big challenge
really having the resources to actually make that demand.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah, it's too well, firstly, the prices have gone up
and people and everyday working people who haven't got community
service cards are really struggling to afford it in a
lot of the cases. That's because the government funding hasn't
kept up. There's some thing here about an Independent Price
and Authority that will help. We then need the doctors
to be able to meet it. They haven't come into
general practice because you get paid a lot more if
you go into hospital specialties and you end up doing
(04:50):
more weekend work and evening work supporting your patients as GPS,
which because we don't have an employment contract, we just
need we need those terms to be recognized and then
we're going to get them in because it's a great career,
it's a fantastic job.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
I guess this policy is not actually going to an
necessarily increase the pay structure for what GPS in, is it?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
No? No, no, no. We're hoping the Independent Price and
Authority will do something on that. You know, so we
did nineteen up until this year, we did nineteen out
of twenty years below inflation, which made it difficult to
pay doctors and the rest of the team and nurses
and everyone else at market rates. So hopefully the Independent
Price and Authority acknowledges that, and that means we can
start to lit the pay and people will really want
(05:32):
to come.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
In so because I think one of the things that
I mean, it's a very fresh policy, but I think
one of the goals of the Labor Party with this
announcement is that it aimed at increasing the number of
healthcare professionals. Do you think realistically it will do that
or just make life a bit easier for the smaller
owner operator.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
I think that when you look at the policy across,
what it's saying is we need primary care, we need
general practice to be functioning, and good general practices a
GPU looks after you and your family, So let's get
them in the doing that, and that's what we need.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, I mean, what do you think is holding us
back in terms of increasing doctor numbers. Is it just
that it's not so pardon the cru expression, it's not
so sexy. Maybe that as you say, they can make
more money and other specialties.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, I think we invested for years and years and
years in the hospital system and that needs you know,
and you can see the need for that, but often
when you get to the hospital point, you know, only
two point five percent of cares in the in the
hospital system, twenty five percent in general practice, and seventy
five percent people doing what they do to look after themselves,
Like your next speaker is going to talk to you know,
So actually we need to we need to refocus that
(06:40):
thing that said the economy New Zealand can't afford to
keep us pumping money into the end point, Let's get people,
keep them well in the community, stop keep them out
of there. And the best way to do that is
in a trusted relationship with the GP.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Over years that do you have any idea how much
extra investment it would really take to actually make the
profession a little more appealing and therefore get more people
into it.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Ah, we've had reports, We've had the report that's now
four years out of the Moody Report, and they were
both they're both pretty clear that we were at least
twenty percent underfunded. In order to do we have to
bring that up. Then we can stop raising fees. People
will be able to afford it, We'll be able to
pay the staff better, they'll come and do it, and
then we can keep people well.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, just quickly, I just wanted to clarify. So, I mean,
it's difficult to give quick answers on these things, but
I said, yeah, how many more GPS would you summon
up with a click of a fingers, you said three hundred?
But with yeah, are you saying that with the policy
of easier accessible care that Labour's offering, you'd need another
three hundred? Would be your guess?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean I think that Chris Hipkins was
quoted as saying that we needed something like two and
a half million consults extra through their policy. Well, if
each you know, each GP can do about one hundred
consults a week, one hundred and ten maybe over over
forty four weeks of work, and you know, you can
start adding up those numbers there. You know, it's two
(08:00):
and a half million is a lot when you divide
it by four and a half thousand consults year per GP.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
So okay, hey, what what what else would you I mean,
what else would you like to see labor or national
and what policy would you really be looking forward to
get a game changer?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Look if they if they were to say, look, let's
let's get a similar employment contract for your staff based
on proper data about what the community needs that is
reflective of the hospital contract. When we could say to
junior doctors, hey, look, I know you're thinking about being
a pediatrician. I know you thinking about doing d but
we've got a great career too. Commissions are going to
be the same, the pace will be the same, Come
(08:38):
and do illness.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah what just saud of curse And I'm not sure
about the legal niceties of this. Can nurse practitioners actually
also buy into general practice as well? Because there was
a bit of yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah, yeah, no may counsels. There are a number of
two or three nurse practitioner run practices in the country
at the moment, So yeah, there are opportunities for that,
I believe.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah, Okay, I guess the one thing is you'd be
probably quite you'd be reasonably happy that the sort of
issue is becoming our political battle ground for the election.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah. Absolutely. We've been talking for years about the fact
that there was potential in general practice, but it's been
underrecognized and run down. And now both parties seem more
actually a number of the parties seem to really have
recognized that this is the place that they can make
a difference and unload the burden on secondary care and
the cost of to society.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Just out of curiosity, I imagine you you look a
bit further afield than New Zealand. Although this is your
immediate course for concern. Are these issues that we are discussing,
how common are they in the OECD?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah, yeah, really fascinating. So it is absolutely there's a
big move across the OECD now into focusing on primary care.
Because of that key people, well, get them diagnosed early,
stuff possible. We're seeing a lot of country shift towards
the New Zealand, the old New Zealand model, the best
New Zealand model, which is your family doctor looks after
you and your family and knows you well. We're seeing that,
(10:00):
and we're also we're also seeing the need to invest it.
I mean Australia has certainly recently announced a fairly reasonable
upgrade in it. So yep, everyone's competing for the doctors
as well. That's one problem we're seeing. But yeah, it
is across across the developed world.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Which countries are doing at best? You reckon.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Denmark's Denmark's very good. The Scandinavian countries we always hear it,
don't we They're pretty good. Denmark and Norway are pretty
damn good at looking off the folks, Australia have definitely
made in roads, but we're seeing Singapore, Hong Kong, places
like that really move into a model of that registered
patient thing and supporting their clinics.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Yeah, all good stuff. That's always Scandinavia, isn't it all
these social issues? Is doing it well? Denmark scanning anyway. Hey, look,
I really appreciate your time. This happening, Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Thanks for more from the Weekend Collective.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Listen live to news Talks it'd be weekends from three pm,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks.
I'd be so yes. Labor leader Chris Hipkins unveiled the
party's first policy for next year's election, low interest loans
to support doctor owned clinics. The scheme will offer up
to fifty ten year long loans a year for doctor
(00:27):
or nurse practitioners to open or buy into local clinics.
It's interest free for the first two years. After announcing
their policy of three free GP appointments a year, questions
are raised about how our health system will manage more appointments,
of course, but would this move be something or enough
to keep the system above water through potential changes. Anyway,
we're going to dig into it. The President of the
(00:49):
Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, Dr Luke Bradford
joins me. Now, Luke, good.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Afternoon, Good afternoon, sim How are you doing good?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Thanks? What do you reckon?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
What think you sir? A really positive acknowledgement that in
order to better serve the health system, you need a
function in primary care and to do that you need
the doctors to come into it. So this is a
step in the right direction to that.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
An acknowledgment. That doesn't sound like you're calling it a solution.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Ah, it's part of the solutions. We need to We
need to train more doctors. We know that there's been
some steps by the current government to do that, but
in order to attract those into training, we need to
make the profession better rewarding, more easily accessible. We need
to show people that they've got a place in business,
that the governments and that both sides of this political
(01:38):
spectrum will believe in the model of care and therefore
give it some security so people can make a decision
to make it their business and their livelihood and set
up in their communities.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
How short are we of GPS? If you could click
your fingers, how many more would you summon up?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Ah? Absolutely, immediately three hundred. In reality, it's probably near
a six hundred. If we do this extra these extra consults,
as per the labor thing, will be over that over
six hundred we'd need.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
How many do you think we've native with that policy?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Oh yeah, so over six hundred. And now.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
With the new policy of free GPS.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
We're already we're already short. Right, We're already short of
at least three hundred and that's what we're trying to,
you know, attract to. There are some things in this policy.
You know they talk about three enough appointments with efficiencies
and there's some stuff in that that can be done.
Good to see some ideas about investing in AI note
take in and support and practices to transfer over to.
(02:34):
Sorry about that, Yeah, I get phone trige.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I just didn't notice the thing except the sorry about that.
Actually just paid a picture for us. I imagine that
you have. You know, you've set up your own practice.
Can you tell us about the challenge of doing that
as a GP and and what stage in your career
did you do it?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, so I did it very early on as a
as a senior registrar. The practice I trained in had
an opportunity and I took a bank loan to do that.
Since then, the market shifted, that was a common way
of doing it. We've had the corporates arrive who bring
in venture capital money and start to make it very
(03:16):
difficult for junior doctors to access for kind of finances
they need to buy. So this acknowledges that things are
more expensive. It's been fantastic for me. We've we've built,
we've got a lovely practice, really successful team, multi disciplinary team,
and we sell on to our juniors. So we've had
two juniors buying in the last year.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
And is that something that was an easy sell for
you to say would you like to buy them? And
they go yes, thanks.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
To do you know? I mean they did? You know?
Depends on their position. Certainly one of them, young family,
three young kids, a mortgage, really did struggle to take
that leap. It's been the right decision for them, but
that we there had to be some real support to
get them there.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
What I actually what level of experience should you would
expect a doctor would start to look into investing into
owning their own practice.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, so yeah, you come out of medical school, you
do five years further training and then at about that
point you may start to be thinking where am I
settling down and my business minded? So probably early thirties,
mid thirties.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
The as the big concern really around how making access
easier for health and GP appointments is the big challenge
really having the resources to actually make that demand.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah, it's too well, firstly, the prices have gone up
and people and everyday working people who haven't got community
service cards are really struggling to afford it in a
lot of the cases. That's because the government funding hasn't
kept up. There's some thing here about an Independent Price
and Authority that will help. We then need the doctors
to be able to meet it. They haven't come into
general practice because you get paid a lot more if
you go into hospital specialties and you end up doing
(04:50):
more weekend work and evening work supporting your patients as GPS,
which because we don't have an employment contract, we just
need we need those terms to be recognized and then
we're going to get them in because it's a great career,
it's a fantastic job.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
I guess this policy is not actually going to an
necessarily increase the pay structure for what GPS in, is it?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
No? No, no, no. We're hoping the Independent Price and
Authority will do something on that. You know, so we
did nineteen up until this year, we did nineteen out
of twenty years below inflation, which made it difficult to
pay doctors and the rest of the team and nurses
and everyone else at market rates. So hopefully the Independent
Price and Authority acknowledges that, and that means we can
start to lit the pay and people will really want
(05:32):
to come.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
In so because I think one of the things that
I mean, it's a very fresh policy, but I think
one of the goals of the Labor Party with this
announcement is that it aimed at increasing the number of
healthcare professionals. Do you think realistically it will do that
or just make life a bit easier for the smaller
owner operator.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
I think that when you look at the policy across,
what it's saying is we need primary care, we need
general practice to be functioning, and good general practices a
GPU looks after you and your family, So let's get
them in the doing that, and that's what we need.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, I mean, what do you think is holding us
back in terms of increasing doctor numbers. Is it just
that it's not so pardon the cru expression, it's not
so sexy. Maybe that as you say, they can make
more money and other specialties.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, I think we invested for years and years and
years in the hospital system and that needs you know,
and you can see the need for that, but often
when you get to the hospital point, you know, only
two point five percent of cares in the in the
hospital system, twenty five percent in general practice, and seventy
five percent people doing what they do to look after themselves,
Like your next speaker is going to talk to you know,
So actually we need to we need to refocus that
(06:40):
thing that said the economy New Zealand can't afford to
keep us pumping money into the end point, Let's get people,
keep them well in the community, stop keep them out
of there. And the best way to do that is
in a trusted relationship with the GP.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Over years that do you have any idea how much
extra investment it would really take to actually make the
profession a little more appealing and therefore get more people
into it.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Ah, we've had reports, We've had the report that's now
four years out of the Moody Report, and they were
both they're both pretty clear that we were at least
twenty percent underfunded. In order to do we have to
bring that up. Then we can stop raising fees. People
will be able to afford it, We'll be able to
pay the staff better, they'll come and do it, and
then we can keep people well.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, just quickly, I just wanted to clarify. So, I mean,
it's difficult to give quick answers on these things, but
I said, yeah, how many more GPS would you summon
up with a click of a fingers, you said three hundred?
But with yeah, are you saying that with the policy
of easier accessible care that Labour's offering, you'd need another
three hundred? Would be your guess?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean I think that Chris Hipkins was
quoted as saying that we needed something like two and
a half million consults extra through their policy. Well, if
each you know, each GP can do about one hundred
consults a week, one hundred and ten maybe over over
forty four weeks of work, and you know, you can
start adding up those numbers there. You know, it's two
(08:00):
and a half million is a lot when you divide
it by four and a half thousand consults year per GP.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
So okay, hey, what what what else would you I mean,
what else would you like to see labor or national
and what policy would you really be looking forward to
get a game changer?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Look if they if they were to say, look, let's
let's get a similar employment contract for your staff based
on proper data about what the community needs that is
reflective of the hospital contract. When we could say to
junior doctors, hey, look, I know you're thinking about being
a pediatrician. I know you thinking about doing d but
we've got a great career too. Commissions are going to
be the same, the pace will be the same, Come
(08:38):
and do illness.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah what just saud of curse And I'm not sure
about the legal niceties of this. Can nurse practitioners actually
also buy into general practice as well? Because there was
a bit of yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah, yeah, no may counsels. There are a number of
two or three nurse practitioner run practices in the country
at the moment, So yeah, there are opportunities for that,
I believe.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah, Okay, I guess the one thing is you'd be
probably quite you'd be reasonably happy that the sort of
issue is becoming our political battle ground for the election.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah. Absolutely. We've been talking for years about the fact
that there was potential in general practice, but it's been
underrecognized and run down. And now both parties seem more
actually a number of the parties seem to really have
recognized that this is the place that they can make
a difference and unload the burden on secondary care and
the cost of to society.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Just out of curiosity, I imagine you you look a
bit further afield than New Zealand. Although this is your
immediate course for concern. Are these issues that we are discussing,
how common are they in the OECD?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah, yeah, really fascinating. So it is absolutely there's a
big move across the OECD now into focusing on primary care.
Because of that key people, well, get them diagnosed early,
stuff possible. We're seeing a lot of country shift towards
the New Zealand, the old New Zealand model, the best
New Zealand model, which is your family doctor looks after
you and your family and knows you well. We're seeing that,
(10:00):
and we're also we're also seeing the need to invest it.
I mean Australia has certainly recently announced a fairly reasonable
upgrade in it. So yep, everyone's competing for the doctors
as well. That's one problem we're seeing. But yeah, it
is across across the developed world.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Which countries are doing at best? You reckon.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Denmark's Denmark's very good. The Scandinavian countries we always hear it,
don't we They're pretty good. Denmark and Norway are pretty
damn good at looking off the folks, Australia have definitely
made in roads, but we're seeing Singapore, Hong Kong, places
like that really move into a model of that registered
patient thing and supporting their clinics.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Yeah, all good stuff. That's always Scandinavia, isn't it all
these social issues? Is doing it well? Denmark scanning anyway. Hey, look,
I really appreciate your time. This happening, Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Thanks for more from the Weekend Collective.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Listen live to news Talks it'd be weekends from three pm,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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