Annual conference of the New Zealand branch of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists

Good evening. Thanks for your introduction Mike O'Rourke. (RANZCO president)

Members of the New Zealand branch of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists and guests. 

Thank you for inviting me along to the beginning of your annual conference.

I'd like to extend a special welcome to any of our international guests here this evening - I hope you are all enjoying Wellington's hospitality.

The need for change and innovation

Conferences such as this are excellent opportunities to learn about new techniques and treatments, and to consider innovations.

This will become even more critical as our population ages, as we will increasingly need to do things better and smarter in future.

And here in New Zealand, we're going to have to do that with the same level of resource - and that is a considerable challenge.

The economy is getting marginally better but it is projected that our net debt will grow hugely - from 14% of GDP now to 30% of GDP by 2015. 

It's a similar situation around the world and there are dramatic decisions having to be made.

For example, in Ireland it has been reported the Government is considering laying off thousands of health workers and cutting up to 1 billion Euros from Health expenditure with 15% cuts.

Many hundreds of back office and frontline jobs face the axe in a number of Australian states to reduce duplication and make savings. 

In the UK, the National Health Service health resourcing is under huge pressure and the new Government is planning $6 billion cuts to public services.

Spain has just announced a 5% cut in public sector pay from this June.

Times are very tight.

Here at home, the Government is already borrowing around $40 billion over the next 4 years to protect social services including Health.

It is no secret that Vote Health will get a smaller increase in next week's budget.

But Health will get an increase - the Government is committed to protecting and growing our public health service, and we will be borrowing money to ensure Vote Health is increased.

The health sector in turn will need - more than ever - to ensure a strong and ongoing focus on value for money, shifting resources where we can from administration and low priority spending into the frontline services that matter most.

And just as importantly, we need to look at new ways of working and changing roles.

This is a challenging time for New Zealand, and for our Health service. 

But I have the best job in politics and this is also an exciting time to be in Health.

And we will be relying on senior clinicians like you who have the ability to make change happen.

Opportunities for clinical leadership

You are among those key people whose contribution and knowledge is vital to achieving the high performing, high quality health system New Zealanders want.

We need your leadership in particular in responding to the increasing prevalence of long term conditions, such as diabetes and macular degeneration.

Capacity to provide services in conventional ways will come under increasing pressure and require changes to the way services are delivered. 

A good example of that sort of change already happening is in provision of diabetes retinal screening in the Greater Wellington region - and parts of some other DHBs.

Optometrists work in the community with a designated ophthalmologist in charge of quality assurance. This makes better use of Out Patients Clinics in DHBs.

By safely shifting routine diabetes retinal screening like this into the community, effective control of quality and overall outcomes is retained and, the role of ophthalmologists will potentially be enhanced.

Increasing Access

We are increasing the number of people accessing ophthalmology treatment.

In the last year for example, a record 21,760 patients received elective ophthalmology surgery - a ten per cent increase on 2008.

This was part of the Government's drive to give an extra 4,000 patients elective surgery each year.  

We've gone well beyond that already - last year nearly 13,000 more people got the elective operations they needed than the year before - and of these extra people - ophthalmology operated on 2,000 of them.

Which is half the original target increase.

I also appreciate the work of the New Zealand Branch of RANZCO and the Ministry of Health on new priority criteria to access to cataract surgery.

This is good news for patients as over 10,000 patients have now been assessed for their cataracts using the new criteria. Many of these assessments have been undertaken by Optometrists.

You've been asking patients how they feel about this and I'm told the feedback is overwhelmingly positive.

Save Our Sight

I'd also like to take the opportunity this evening to acknowledge the work of all those involved in this campaign.

The campaign's mission to improve the eye health of New Zealanders by raising the profile of eye health and by fostering understanding among New Zealanders of the need to take responsibility for personal eye health is to be commended.

In closing

Occasions like this where health professionals come together to discuss new treatments and diagnostic technologies, are important opportunities to advance your collective thinking, and to test innovative ideas.

As Minister of Health I have had the privilege of meeting a large variety of committed, hardworking and innovative people in our health system.

This Government is committed to protecting and growing the public health services and you are playing a major role in that.

In the meantime I hope you can relax and enjoy a productive branch meeting over the course of the next three days.