Document for PDF - Ministry of Health

Child Health: High Levels of
Activity
Issues
New Zealand has one million children aged 14 or
younger, with 57,000 babies born annually.
Disparities of health outcome for Maori and Pacific
Islands children are well documented. The Child
Health Strategy (1998) and Strengthening Families
Strategy provide the basis to address disparities and
improve all children’s health.
Personal Health’s Action
Child Health Information System
Quantitative information on children’s health is not
available in any easily retrievable form.
• Personal Health has been developing the Child
Health Information Strategy (CHIS) which will
be implemented progressively. Some aspects
have already begun, such as the perinatal
information system and immunisation coverage
(using HBL data)
• The KidZNet pilot is underway, involving
information transfer between providers.
This will govern the way a national information
system is established. National consistency will
be ensured during implementation between
providers and a range of systems.
WellChild and Youth Service
The key issues for WellChild are access and
coverage.
• A technical advisory group of clinicians,
providers, and Personal Health is considering
future directions for WellChild services,
including the possible linkage of funding
mechanisms for WellChild and immunisation
services.
• Integrated child health service approaches
(facilitating co-ordination and information
sharing between providers) have been
developed in West Auckland, Rotorua,
Hamilton and Christchurch.
• The development of a youth strategy focusing
on sexual and reproductive health will
commence in 2000.
Family Health Initiatives
Strengthening Families is a joint initiative to
improve outcomes for children and young people
at high risk. There are three programmes: Family
Start, Local Co-ordination and Preventative
Initiatives.
• Personal Health is meeting regularly with
health, education and social services policy staff
to ensure effective national implementation.
• Personal Health is the lead purchaser on a
number of programmes. Four further
programmes have been put in place by Personal
Health.
• In some areas there has been resistance to local
co-ordination programmes. Personal Health is
developing strategies accordingly.
Rural Health: Continual Focus
Issues
Retention and recruitment of doctors in rural areas
is one of the most significant problems facing the
health sector. Rural communities, particularly
small ones, have difficulty attracting and retaining
health services. They can often support only one
doctor who is constantly on call, isolated and has
difficulty finding locums. The doctor-to-patient
ratio in rural areas is lower than that of other areas.
On-going professional development is critical for
the safety of practice and to overcome professional
isolation.
Rural communities have specific needs which must
be taken into account: the disparity of health status
of Maori; lower socio-economic groups; people
with disabilities who require assistance; children
and older adults; and the high injury rate.
Access to services by Maori is a particular concern.
For non-Maori, the rural health status measures
compare favourably with urban.
Personal Health’s Action
We have developed initiatives over the past year to
address these problems. These include:
• Improving the retention of health professionals
through the change from the rural bonus to the
rural ranking scheme; expansion of the Centre
for Rural Health to a national role and the
HFA Improving Our Health 19