Category: Ministry of Health

Source: New Zealand Ministry of Health

This version of the New Zealand Pandemic Plan updates the New Zealand Influenza Pandemic Plan: A framework for action (Ministry of Health 2017).

The interim update was completed at pace, is limited in scope, and reflects changes to how the health system is run since the 2022 reforms and some of the early lessons from the COVID-19 response. 

The update is part of a wider review of pandemic preparedness taking place in two stages. This two-stage approach means the interim plan can reflect the changes in who does what in the health system since the 2022 health reforms and ensure those changed roles and responsibilities are clear if a new pandemic was to occur tomorrow.  It focuses on on goals, principles, key considerations and high-level roles and responsibilities.   

Key changes include:  

• Broadening the scope to cover respiratory-type pathogens of pandemic potential. 
• Ensuring it is consistent with recent legislative changes, notably the 2022 health reforms. 
• Reflecting Heath New Zealand’s role in leading the operational health response, the Ministry of Health’s role in providing strategic and policy advice. 
• Embedding some early lessons learnt from COVID-19 response, including the process for doing regular public health risk assessments and adopting a flexible testing approach.  

The updated pandemic plan covers the health system response. It does not cover the all-of-government or wider societal response to a pandemic. It is also only one tool for developing the health system’s preparedness and complements preparedness work across health services and wider society.

Source: New Zealand Ministry of Health

In June 2023, the Public Health Agency, within the Ministry of Health, commissioned research agency Verian to undertake a series of research projects and population surveys into attitudes and behaviours related to public health measures following the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this research was to examine the impact of COVID-19 on New Zealanders’ attitudes and behaviours towards public health measures and use this knowledge to better prepare the Ministry, and other decision makers, for future pandemics and other major health threats.  

This work is split into two parts, each with two reports. The first part is two repeated behavioural surveys to monitor adherence to public health measures over time, covering both intention and actual behaviour. The second part is a qualitative analysis to explore drivers of COVID-19 related public health behaviours, and to quantify the impact of barriers and other factors on adherence to public health measures. This involves qualitative interviews followed by a survey.

This report, Measuring public health behaviours and intentions is one of the two based on findings from the behavioural survey. It is the second of the four reports to be published.

Key findings

• Half of the adults who had flu symptoms and interacted with others at a place of work or study, said they interacted with others while unwell. A third of children interacted with other children at their school while they were unwell.
• Parents/caregivers are more likely to keep their children home from school if they’re unwell than adults are to keep themselves away from work (83% vs 55% ‘at least somewhat likely’).
• Around 50% of New Zealanders said COVID-19 hasn’t impacted their intention to get vaccinated for the flu, other illnesses, and a new pandemic. The remaining 50% are relatively evenly split between being more likely to get vaccinated now than they were before COVID-19 and being less likely. Most parents/caregivers are just as likely to get vaccinations for their children, as they were before COVID-19 (22% ‘more likely’, 61% ‘just as likely’).

The report is informed by 1,642 surveys conducted online using online research panels. The sample is structured to be demographically representative of the population by age, gender, and region. Māori and Pacific peoples over-sampled relative to population to ensure sufficient sample sizes for analysis – 369 of the 1,642 interviews were with Māori and 200 were with Pacific peoples (30 people identified as both Māori and Pacific).​ An additional 197 surveys were conducted by telephone – 109 with Māori and 101 with Pacific peoples (13 people identified as both Māori and Pacific).​ Surveying was conducted 31 October to 29 November 2023.​

The report will help enhance the Ministry’s understanding of people’s recent and intended public health behaviours and how these have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: New Zealand Ministry of Health

Summary

There have been some encouraging signs of a reduction in lives lost to suicide in the past few years, after a decade of relatively static rates. Evidence-based interventions are required to build on this momentum and ensure that as a country we continue to see reductions in the suicide rate.

This publication summarises the most up-to-date and relevant local and international literature on suicide prevention and postvention. It highlights what the most impactful interventions are for the New Zealand context and where the gaps in the research are.

Because literature on suicide prevention mostly reflects a Western, individualised, and often psychiatric perspective on suicide within a strong positivist tradition, this review has ensured a specific search for, and inclusion of, suicide prevention activity in Aotearoa New Zealand, irrespective of publication status or study design.

The review highlights the importance of, and relative under-utilisation of universal strategies that address structural determinants such as poverty, loss of land, discrimination and violence, un- and underemployment, such as unemployment benefits, active support of return to labour market programmes, social welfare and robust employment protection legislation.

Key evidence-based universal interventions include increasing adherence to responsible media suicide reporting guidelines, as well as application to social media and all public communication, restricting access to means of suicide, and reducing access to alcohol are critical. Selected and indicated interventions, including psychosocial assessment and support to address factors that increase suicidal distress that are delivered in the context of these universal approaches to suicide prevention, remain important and the promising practice is within mātauranga Māori and given the lack of focus in the field, this seems imperative to progress, with whānau being the appropriate unit of intervention.

Please note: The recommendations expressed in this report are derived from those undertaking the evidence synthesis and may not represent the views of Manatū Hauora

Source: New Zealand Ministry of Health

Summary

The 2023 Illicit Drug Harm Index, prepared by the National Drug Intelligence Bureau (a joint operation of New Zealand Customs Service, Ministry of Health, and New Zealand Police), uses the same methodology as the 2020 Illicit Drug Harm Index to calculate estimates of total harm and harm per kilogram of drug consumed. Illicit drugs potentially include legal drugs (such as medication) diverted to the illicit drug market and/or the misuse of medications and excludes alcohol and tobacco.

Source: New Zealand Ministry of Health

The Government Policy Statement on Health 2024-27 is the public statement of what Government expects the health system to deliver and achieve, and how success will be measured, monitored, and reported. 

The GPS sets the direction for the health system as a whole and incorporates the Government’s priorities. It sets the expectations for health entities to make sure they are working towards common goals that matter for New Zealanders. 

The GPS ties in with the Health Targets launched by Minister of Health Hon Dr Shane Reti in February 2024. 

The development of the GPS was informed by insights gained from extensive public consultation undertaken to inform the development of the New Zealand Health Strategy and associated Pae Ora | Healthy Futures strategies last year. 

The GPS also sets clear parameters for the New Zealand Health Plan, which will be published by Health New Zealand in 2024. 

The GPS 2024-27 sets out five priority areas for the health system.

• Access – ensuring all New Zealanders have equitable access to the health care services they need, no matter where they live.
• Timeliness – making sure all New Zealanders can access these services in a prompt and efficient way.
• Quality – ensuring New Zealand’s health care and services are safe, easy to navigate, understandable and welcoming to users, and are continuously improving.
• Workforce – having a skilled and culturally capable workforce who are accessible, responsive, and supported to deliver safe and effective health care. 
• Infrastructure – ensuring that the health system is resilient and has the digital and physical infrastructure it needs to meet people’s needs now and the future.  

The GPS also outlines the Minister for Mental Health’s priorities for mental health, addiction and suicide prevention, which align strongly with the overall health system priorities. 

Each priority area in the GPS includes a set of key measures, focused on the desired changes. Health entities will report regularly against these measures. The Ministry of Health will report publicly on the results of these GPS measures every year. 
 

Source: New Zealand Ministry of Health

In 2023 the Chief Allied Health Professions Officer convened Sector Reference Groups (SRGs) for 14 allied health professions. Each SRG was composed of a wide range of representatives from across the sector, including employers, employees, unions, regulators and professional bodies, educators, Tāngata Whenua profession-specific groups, and students.

The purpose of the SRGs was to understand the unique contribution of each profession to achieving the aims of the Pae Ora legislation, as well as to understand key barriers and opportunities to realising each profession’s full potential to contribute to the aims of Pae Ora.

Validated information from each SRG has been collated into this report. In addition to this profession-specific information, this report provides a high level summary of shared opportunities and barriers which were identified across many allied health professions.

The Hauora Haumi Allied Health Report is intended to be a living document which serves as a point of reference to inform stakeholders about the breadth and depth of knowledge and skill contained within hauora haumi | allied health professions. It serves as a starting point and will be iteratively updated to include more hauora haumi | allied health professions over time.

Source: New Zealand Ministry of Health

Summary

The HIV Monitoring Plan sets out 52 indicators that that will be used to monitor New Zealand’s progress towards achieving the goals, targets, and overarching vision of the National HIV Action Plan for Aotearoa New Zealand 2023-2030 (the HIV Action Plan).

The vision of the HIV Action Plan is ‘an Aotearoa New Zealand where HIV transmission is eliminated and all people living with HIV have healthy lives fee from stigma and discrimination’.

To monitor progress towards achieving this overarching vision, indicators have been developed for each of the following five goals:

1. reduced number of new locally acquired HIV infections
2. improved Māori health and wellbeing in relation to HIV by delivering on our Tiriti o Waitangi obligations
3. decreased mortality and the negative consequences of HIV on health and wellbeing
4. decreased experiences of stigma and discrimination for people living with HIV
5. increased equity in relation to all HIV goals and objectives.

This HIV Monitoring Plan will be reviewed periodically to ensure it is up to date and aligned with the latest priorities and available data.

Source: New Zealand Ministry of Health

This report outlines and compares regulatory approaches to natural health products (NHPs) in Australia, Canada, the EU, UK, USA and China.

For the purpose of this report, NHPs are a group of health and wellness products. They include nutritional supplements and products used in traditional healing practices. They are mostly derived from natural ingredients but can also contain synthetic equivalents (e.g. ascorbic acid for vitamin C and folic acid for the B vitamin, folate). They come in edible and inedible forms (e.g. tablets, powders, creams and inhalants). Examples include nutritional supplements (e.g. vitamin E, magnesium and sports supplements), herbal products (e.g. echinacea tablets, St John’s Wort capsules, and kawakawa balm), and animal products (e.g. deer velvet and fish oil capsules).

The report also covers regulation of homeopathy in Germany and Ayurveda in India.

Information in this report was extracted from both peer-reviewed and grey literature.

Source: New Zealand Ministry of Health

Summary

In 2023, the Ministry of Health, with the support of Health New Zealand, commissioned Allen + Clarke, working with the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, to review the use of the alcohol levy and its function under the new Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022.

The levy is raised from alcohol produced or imported for sale in New Zealand and allows the Ministry to recover some of the cost of addressing the harm caused by alcohol. At the time of the review, the levy had not materially changed since 2009.  

The review has been conducted in two stages. The stage one report, published in July 2023, was timed to inform the annual alcohol levy setting for 2023/24. It recommended retaining the alcohol levy at the previous level until further analysis and more in-depth stakeholder engagement has been undertaken during stage two of the review. 

The stage two report, this report, was published in June 2024.

The second stage report makes several recommendations for updating how the levy is administered and invested. These include:

• increasing the Ministry of Health’s capacity to monitor and assess levy spending across the health entities.
• developing an investment framework to create criteria for levy investment and the ability to measure outcomes against strategic priorities.
• strategic governance structures to help set the priorities and direction of levy investments 
• undertaking a full assessment of current and potential levy-funded activities to ensure all activities meet the strategic direction and investment criteria.
• Increasing levy funding.

On 10 June, Cabinet confirmed an increase to the alcohol levy from about $11.5m a year to about $16.6m a year, effective from 1 July 2024. This reflects that the levy has not kept pace with inflation and has not been increased since 2009.  

The review’s recommendations will inform the Ministry of Health’s approach to administering and allocating the levy going forward, including setting criteria for investment.

Source: New Zealand Ministry of Health

Summary

The Public Health Agency, within the Ministry of Health, commissioned the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) to conduct an updated analysis of the costs of alcohol related harm in New Zealand. This was to support an independent review of the alcohol levy, undertaken by Allen + Clarke.

The NZIER report is the first estimate of the costs of alcohol harm to New Zealand since 2009.

The report is focused on informing future investment of the levy to help prevent alcohol harm, by estimating the total gross cost of alcohol harm and how these costs are distributed across society. Because of this focus it is not a cost-benefit analysis.

The report made the following estimates:

• $9.1b estimated total cost of alcohol harm based on disability-adjusted life years
• $4.8b associated with disability-adjusted life years from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD)
• $1.2 b associated with disability-adjusted life years from alcohol use disorder
• $281m – intimate partner violence (for alcohol use disorder alone)
• $74m – child maltreatment (for hazardous drinking alone),
• $2.1b in societal cost of road crashes where alcohol was a factor
• $4b in lost productivity associated with alcohol use, including FASD, crimes and workplace absenteeism
• $810m, predominantly in health and ACC spending.

It is important to note the above estimates represent different ways of categorising alcohol harm and in some instances overlap. For example, costs associated with FASD may also show up in lost productivity and health spending. For this reason, the categories should not be compared directly to one another or to the total estimated harm from alcohol use ($9.1bn).

In addition, the NZIER report made some broad recommendations on the approach to investing the levy. These included:

• levy funding decisions should be focused on areas with evidence of impact, cost-effectiveness and scale of unmet need
• agencies should consider using a portion of levy funds to fill the evidence gaps identified by the NZIER report, and
• agencies should consider using a portion of levy funds to fund areas of harm with strong causal attribution to alcohol consumption.