Major Breakthrough for Healthcare

Health Minister Bill English said today's launch of a task force to help the country's largest hospital and largest group of GPs work together was a major breakthrough for the public health service.

"We have a signed agreement which brings two of the biggest participants in public health care together to work for improved public health services," Mr English said.

"When GPs and hospitals work together patients will be the winners.

"Auckland HealthCare and ProCare, which represents more than 350 GPs, are powerful organisations that receive more than $600 million of public health money a year.

"The agreement they signed today launches an Integration Task Force which will work out ways that the hospitals and GPs can do a better job for the people they all treat," he said.

"The task force's two initial projects, to improve information sharing and improve care for asthmatics, should both result in better public health services.

"This agreement also reflects what is already happening up and down the country in smaller towns. Local hospitals, GPs, plunket nurses, district and public nurses, community health workers, pharmacists and others recognise that to serve the people they see best, they need to work together," he said.

"People who are sick expect their hospital specialists and their GPs to be talking about their illnesses and treatment. In the past, and still too often today, that doesn't happen.

"Instead hospital staff do their best for patients when they are in hospital and GPs do a good job when the same people come into the surgery. The trouble is neither party has been good at making contact with the other and working out how, together, they can improve what they do for patients.

"The task force is a great start in bridging that historical gap for Aucklanders," Mr English said.