Opening GP services in gyms and upskilling nurses to manage patients’ long-term conditions are among the new ways we plan to support Māori and Pasifika patients.
The PHO has released its 2022‒2023 business plan to meet its ethos of working in partnership with its communities to achieve equity and improve the health status of all, with particular emphasis on Māori and Pasifika people and other communities with health disparities.
Around 50 percent of its 230,000 enrolled patients are Māori or Pasifika (37,000 Māori and 77,000 Pasifika) and 60 percent of patients are high-needs.
That’s why it puts a high priority on helping those with long-term conditions with 53 percent of its 2022/23 spending earmarked for long-term conditions. Read the Total Healthcare 2022‒2023 Business Plan.
GPs in gyms
Total Healthcare PHO will build on its new partnership with Brown Butterbean Motivation (BBM) by opening its first gym-based Local Doctors GP services at BBM’s gyms in Manukau and New Lynn.
“I believe innovative partnerships like this one that commenced in December last year, are at the heart of the new health system. From this year Total Healthcare patients who are severely overweight have been referred to BBM and join a free programme to help them with sustained weight loss with funding and support from the Ministry of Health and PHO,” CEO Mark Vella says.
“We welcomed BBM’s suggestion that we also bring GP services to their gyms where people are already visiting to seek help. BBM has an amazing track record of motivating people to change their lives and health, particularly Māori and Pasifika. They are also populations that can be reticent to see a GP and or have barriers to access so it makes sense to bring services to places where they already feel comfortable going.”
Total Healthcare will pay for the provision of general practice workforce on BBM sites and to back fill those roles in their home clinics. The service will be available free to BBM programme participants who will be enrolled with Total Healthcare, if they are not already, and access services to manage their long-term conditions.
Nursing scholarships to start
“We also hope to improve access to care for all patients with long-term conditions by offering free professional development to our nursing staff,” Mr Vella says.
The PHO will offer nurse practitioner and nurse prescriber scholarships to remove the cost barriers to studying.
This will allow qualified nurse practitioners to oversee the fulfilment of the patient’s long-term condition plan and its ongoing monitoring.
“We hope this will make some nurses work more professionally satisfying and free up GPs time to act as a consultant/specialist for the patient’s support team headed by a nurse practitioner. The GP will still diagnose and provide advice on that plan.”
