More from the candidates
Ray Cobb is standing in the Coromandel electorate as part of New Zealand Loyal.
Ray is standing because he has close connections with the Coromandel Electorate and is as concerned as you are about the direction in which the country is heading. Ray is solely a representative using NZ Loyal as a platform in which he can best represent our Coromandel communities. NZ Loyal believes that what we are all facing today can only be solved from the communities up rather than the top down. Come and meet Ray, as he is interested in listening to the concerns of the community with the view to truly working together and solving the issues which face us all today. This will enable you to make an informed choice come Election
Day. www.nzloyal.org.nzay Cobb is standing in the Coromandel electorate as part of New Zealand Loyal.
Scott Simpson is our current MP and National Party candidate for the Coromandel.
National to set health targets to improve results.
For many Coromandel people, access to health services has become a real issue in recent years. Just getting an appointment with a GP can takes weeks in some cases.
We used to have published targets for important measures like wait times and cancer treatment to focus our health system on achieving better results. Sadly, those measures were canned by the current government and as a result, none of the key service level indicators have improved. The Labour Government’s approach to health has taken New Zealand backwards. Wait lists and emergency department wait times have soared, childhood immunisation rates have plunged, and New Zealanders are facing longer delays accessing urgent cancer treatment or surgery.
All this is unacceptable to my National Party colleagues and me. A new National-led government will bring health targets back.
Put simply, health targets save lives, so we will restore them to focus the system on doing better for Coromandel people and all New Zealanders. We will hold ourselves publicly accountable for progress by publishing the results every quarter, for each region.
National’s FIVE major targets for health will be:
1. Shorter stays in emergency department – 95% of patients to be admitted, discharged or transferred from an emergency department within six hours.
2. Faster cancer treatment – 85% of patients to receive cancer management within 31 days of the decision to treat.
3. Improved immunisation – 95% of two-year-olds receiving their full age-appropriate immunisations.
4. Shorter wait times for first specialist assessment – a meaningful reduction in the number of people waiting more than four months to see a specialist (target to be set in government).
5. Shorter wait times for surgery – a meaningful reduction in the number of people waiting more than four months for surgery (target to be set in government).
In addition to setting and publishing targets, we’re concerned by falling childhood immunisation rates and money spent now to lift them will prevent misery, illness and deaths. So to address that, we will establish a one-off Immunisation Incentive Payments programme for GP clinics to lift childhood immunisations for two-year-olds, Measles Mumps & Rubella immunisations in under 18s.
I know how important health services are to Coromandel people. National is serious about supporting the health system, and getting better results from it for New Zealanders.
We’ve already announced that a National Government will increase health funding every year, will fund 13 new cancer treatments, extend the breast cancer screening age to 74 and address the health workforce crisis by training 220 more doctors each year, and repaying up to $22,500 off nurses and midwives’ student loans in exchange for being bonded to work in New Zealand for five years after graduating. These are all positive steps that will get both our health system and New Zealand back on track.