Leading healthcare provider, ProCare, is today questioning reports out of Te Whatu Ora / Health New Zealand which allege that if someone’s condition has changed, they will be told to see their GP or health provider.

Dr Craig King, Chair of ProCare’s Co-Operative Board, says: “The percentage of patients waiting more than four months for their first specialist assessment has increased from 26.1% in May 2022 to 39.6% in February 2024 according to the latest data from Te Whatu Ora*.

We were surprised and disappointed to hear in Te Whatu Ora’s ‘Building the Future of Health’ webinar on Tuesday 7 May, and subsequently reported in New Zealand Doctor, that the agency believes that up to 50% of general practice work could be done by telehealth.

We would like to see the evidence behind this claim.

On the eve of the Resident Medical Officers’ strike, leading healthcare provider ProCare is calling for the government to re-assess funding for the entire healthcare workforce.

Dr Allan Moffitt, Clinical Director at ProCare says: “At 7am tomorrow morning, around 2,000 Resident Medical Officers (RMOs) are due to go on strike for 25 hours due to pay disputes. It is disappointing that we have got to this point, however, if we don’t financially compensate our healthcare workers appropriately, then we are likely to continue to see more of this type of industrial action going forward.

ProCare Fresh Minds, New Zealand’s largest provider of primary mental health and wellbeing services, is delighted to be appointed, alongside Tāmaki Health, for Te Whatu Ora’s Psychologist Intern Hub Services for 2024. The Intern Hub is based at Fresh Minds’ busy central Auckland clinics, and at one of Tāmaki Health’s sites, and sees the interns working in various clinical settings across Tāmaki Makaurau.

Our Ara Hauora mobile outreach team has been going from strength to strength, helping whānau with their health needs in the comfort of their own home. So much so that every patient who has filled out the survey after their appointment has given the service a 5-star rating!

Leading healthcare provider, ProCare, has called on Te Whatu Ora | Health New Zealand to provide increased access to HPV screening for women across Aotearoa by allowing Registered Nurses (RNs) who haven’t completed the cervical sample taker training to be able to undertake HPV Primary Screening aka self-testing.

Leading healthcare provider, ProCare, has welcomed Jonathan Duncan into the newly created role of Chief Commercial Officer (CCO).

Jonathan was previously the Finance Director at Les Mills International, and prior to that was at JUCY Group where he was CFO and played a key role in expanding the JUCY business across Aotearoa, Australia and the US.

ProCare welcomed Marama Royal, Chair of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Trust, to the ProCare Co-operative Board with a mihi whakatau. This is an important step forward in solidifying the partnership between ProCare and Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei and their joint commitment towards improving the health and wellbeing of whānau in Tāmaki Makaurau.

The ProCare Charitable Foundation is delighted to announce Dr Peter Didsbury as the new Chair of the Board, with his role effective from 1 February.

ProCare Foundation Acting Chair, Alister Lawrence, says: “We are thrilled to have someone of Dr Peter’s calibre join the ProCare Foundation Board. He has been actively involved in the ProCare network for some time, being a founding director and a longtime Clinical Director of ProCare. Previously he has been Chair of the ProCare Health Board, and has recently retired from the Clendon Medical Centre where he had worked for many years.

The ProCare Charitable Foundation has announced today that $210,000 of funding has been given to six organisations in Auckland who are striving to reduce health inequity, alleviate the symptoms of poverty and increase community health and wellbeing.

ProCare Foundation Acting Chair, Alister Lawrence, says: “We received a huge number of applications in an extremely short period from many community and charitable organisations that are doing amazing mahi. We are so pleased to announce the grant recipients for this year and provide support so they can continue to help our vulnerable communities.”

Leading healthcare provider, ProCare, has today welcomed the announcement from the Minister of Health, Dr Shane Reti, that Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora will continue to provide free rapid antigen tests (RATs) to healthcare providers and the public until 30 June 2024.

This is to support effective ongoing management of Covid-19 outbreaks, to enable access to antiviral medications, and help reduce the impact of Covid-19 on hospital admission rates and people’s illnesses.

Leading healthcare provider, ProCare, is delighted to announce the appointment of Rachel Boase as its new Chief Financial Officer.

Rachel has a strong background in finance and senior leadership positions both in New Zealand and internationally. She has been part of the ProCare team for five years as Head of Finance and has played a crucial role during key moments of the business including purchasing general practices under the Elevate programme, and investing in innovation and joint ventures to support healthcare practices and our communities. Prior to that, she held senior finance roles with ITV in the UK and Sydney.

ProCare is pleased to support the ACC GPMRI Service expanding to include nurse practitioners. From today, 1 December 2023, nurse practitioners working in primary care will be able to refer eligible ACC patients or clients for MRI scans for knee, back and neck injuries, removing the need for patients to visit a specialist before accessing an MRI.

Leading healthcare provider, ProCare, held its Annual General Meeting last night, bringing together shareholders, ProCare staff and Board members to reflect on the year that has passed and redirect sights to the goals for this financial year.

A highlight of the evening was welcoming new board member Dr Karl Cole (Ngāi Tahu) from Papatoetoe Family Doctors and announcing the re-election of Dr Jodie O’Sullivan from Mt Eden 575 Doctors as Directors to the ProCare Co-operative Board.

Leading healthcare provider, ProCare, announced the winners of its 2023 Quality Awards at its Annual General Meeting last night. These awards recognise the excellence and quality of care that general practice teams provide to improve the health and wellbeing of their patients. This is achieved through providing quality care and introducing new innovations to engage with patients.

With many health targets to meet and a stretched primary care workforce, ProCare is doing everything it can to support its practices and patients. One way of doing this is through sharing knowledge at the ProCare Better Together Collaboratives.

The collaboratives are back for a third year, bringing together teams from different practices to work in a structured way to improve aspects of their service to patients. The collaboratives involve learning about best practice, quality improvement tools, skills and change ideas, as well as practice staff sharing their experiences of making improvements in their local settings.

With many health targets to meet and a stretched healthcare workforce across hospitals and primary care, it’s time to start thinking collectively on how all facets of our health system can work together to address the backlog of surgical waitlists.

Te Whatu Ora has issued a directive that by the end of 2023, no patients will wait longer than 12 months for treatment, from the date the decision to treat is made. To reduce the backlog, hospitals are scheduling surgical procedures on the weekends.

ProCare Fresh Minds, New Zealand’s largest provider of primary mental health and wellbeing services, has echoed recent calls by The NZ Psychological Society, NZ College of Clinical Psychologists and NZ Psychologists Board, for political parties to include increased funding in their election promises to train more psychologists to help cover the professional shortage in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Leading healthcare provider, ProCare, is delighted to announce a partnership with Le Va to improve health equity and Pacific healthcare in Tāmaki Makaurau.

This formal partnership is the result of several years of working together and alongside each other to support Pacific families. Some of the activities this partnership will support include workforce development, co-designing Pacific models of care, and collaborating to address health and wellbeing.

CareHQ, the online GP service and joint venture between ProCare and Southern Cross Health Society, is delighted to announce the appointment of Brett Butler as General Manager. 

Butler is currently General Manager of Health Services at ProCare, where he has spent about 20% of his role leading the CareHQ team. Prior to joining ProCare, Butler was a senior manager at Southern Cross Health Society where he led a team in the development and delivery of health insurance products.