Samantha Murton: Royal Colleges of GPs President on Health Minister's GP clinic funding changes

Health Minister Simeon Brown has announced the first major changes to the GP clinic funding model in over 20 years.  

He says from this time next-year, the money will be better distributed based on the needs of the population.  

But Royal Colleges of GPs President Samantha Murton says clinics could lose money if the funding pool stays the same.  

She hopes funding will be level - and boosted for those with higher needs. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Afternoon. We've got some good news finally for GPS. Their
funding is being shaken up. They've previously been funded for
their patients age and sex, but now that will also
include underlying health conditions and deprivation. Doctor Samantha Merton is
the president of the Royal New Zealand College of General
practitionersm with us high Samantha.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hi, how are you well?

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Thank you? Is this going to reduce wait times for GPS?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
There's the package as a whole will help us to
reduce wait times, and the reason being that not only
is there the more funding for capitation and for people
that met have higher needs, but also there's more funding
for our trainees so that we can get more through.
So both of those packages will help us.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Okay, So it's not because the fear initially was that
there was going to be the same same, same pot
of money that's just split up slightly differently, But actually no,
there is more money.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Is there's well, we believe that what will happen is
that it comes in in twenty twenty six. I can't
imagine that they're going to cut down our capitation as
a whole so that some practices we can't have practices
losing money, so therefore practices that will We would hope
that it would stay level for everybody, but there are

(01:09):
those patients that are either high needs with home abidity
like lots of conditional health conditions, in deprivation areas or
in rural areas will get more funding.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
So is it fair to say that if your GP
is in a nice part of town, you're probably not
going to see much change, but if you are in
a more deprived, poorer part of town, or in a
rural part of town, you're more likely to see there'll
be more funding there.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah. And it is about patients. It's about the patients
who need it. And I think what we don't recognize
is that people who are in deprived areas do need
more care. And if the fundings are saying of someone
who doesn't need the extra then the GP services struggle
to make sure that they're putting that extra care in.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, totally. Now you have a target. There is a
target of GP practice is seeing eighty percent of patients
within the week, which I think Cackson mid next year
is that doable.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
I think it could be doable. There's things like infrastructure
change as far as how you set up your patient
acute appointments and how you run your clinics and how
you look after the patients that you're looking after. Normally anyway,
we wouldn't want that to be the only way that
you could get an appointment that it has to be
within the week. We want people to still have choice.
So if you rang up and said, oh, look I'm

(02:28):
away in a week's time, but can I see you
in two weeks time, that should still be allowed. You
should be able to see them the next day. So
there should be choice. But also we should be able
to say, well, actually, if you've got a high need
or urgent kick requirement that you would absolutely be seeing
within a week.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Samantha, Thanks very much, doctor Samantha the Merton, President of
the Royal New Zealand College of GPS. For more from
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