Major Health Conference To Be Held

Health Minister Bill English announced today that a major Government-sponsored conference on how to improve the health of New Zealanders would be held in October.

"We have had a lot of debate about health structures, but not enough debate about what we are all trying to achieve for the health of the community.

"The conference, to be called "Action on Health and Independence", will not be a talkfest. It will be about people who provide health services finding practical ways to improve the health of communities and families.

"I hope the conference will act as a catalyst for much more co-operation across the sector on these issues. We all have to ask ourselves what we, as policy makers, GPs, hospital staff, disability support workers, public health or community health workers, can practically do in our day-to-day work to improve the health of New Zealanders.

"It is my hope we will be able to take ideas from this conference for directly improving how we fund health services and how we measure progress in improving people's health," he said.

The conference is being organised by the Ministry of Health and will be held at Te Papa from 15-17 October. About 200 people are expected to attend.