(Question 14)

How will your party improve access to general practice, specialist services and elective surgery for older New Zealanders?

National

We’ve reduced hospital waiting times, we’re training more doctors and nurses, we’ve boosted Pharmac funding to deliver 66 additional medicines, including 33 new cancer medicines. We delivered more than 16,000 additional elective procedures in 2025, including cataracts, hips and knees, expanded breast screening to women aged 70 to 74, and delivered 12-month prescriptions so people with stable, long-term conditions face fewer GP visits. National will announce its full Health policy platform closer to the election.

Greens

Our policy is to work towards a publicly delivered, fully free primary healthcare system. We would ensure public healthcare services are accessible to all, with a focus on prevention, early screening, timely care, and reducing cost barriers for older people. This includes bringing dental care into the public health system, so it is free and accessible, and removing cost barriers to essential medicines, including prescriptions.

Labour

The health system is struggling because too many people aren’t getting early care for conditions through their family doctor: fees are too high and 600,000 Kiwis can’t afford to visit their GP. Labour will fix this, by providing every New Zealander with three free doctor’s visits, fixing funding for general practice, and backing doctors to set up more clinics with the Family Doctor Loan Scheme.

Every dollar invested in primary care saves money for the rest of the health system. Unless we fix access to primary care, all other efforts to fix our health system will fail. Every New Zealander should have access to timely diagnosis and treatment, and that our skilled medical graduates should be able to find work here at home.

In 2023, Labour approved the funding of 50 new medical students at Otago and Auckland Medical Schools. The current Government has added another 50, and there will also be the future cohort of Waikato Medical School students coming on-stream. So, from 2029 there will be expanding cohorts of doctors ready to work in our health system. We’re committed to working alongside our medical schools and colleges to expand the specialist pathways available to these graduates, ensuring they are sustainable and meet the needs of New Zealanders.

We will assess the current arrangements for outsourcing elective surgery, to make sure this money is being spent most effectively, and whether patients would receive better value for money if it was invested to strengthen our public health system long-term.

N Z First

As in (Question 6) above.

Opportunity Party

Opportunity supports a stable long-term approach to funding for the public health system that enables effective planning and implementation. Within this approach we support a progressive increase in the proportion of public health funding allocated to primary and preventative care. This has historically been proportionally underfunded relative to OECD counterparts.

(Question 15)

What will your party do to reduce waiting times for diagnosis and treatment of conditions that commonly affect seniors?

National

National has expanded bowel cancer screening, lowering the screening age

first to 58 and then to 56, and expanded breast screening to women aged 70-74, allowing more older New Zealanders to access early detection and treatment. A new FIT symptomatic bowel cancer pathway is being rolled out nationally to prioritise colonoscopies for those most at risk, reduce unnecessary referrals, and free up specialist capacity so patients can be seen sooner.

Greens

Our policy is to ensure that public health care services are accessible for all with a focus on Prevention and early screening. Alongside funding mobile healthcare clinics to ensure that all communities have regular access to care. This is achieved by increasing support and funding to health services to allow for shorter wait times and higher number of staff.

Labour

We will improve access to primary care, to free up millions of appointments, so you can get an appointment when you need to. We will also provide increased funding and support for clinics to free up capacity, to help with wait times. We’ve worked with GP representatives on a plan to provide more space, effective technology and a streamlined triage system, to make sure appointments are based on patient need, and allowing GPs to focus more of their time on face-to-face care with patients.

N Z First

As in (Question 6) above.

Opportunity Party

As above, we support stable long-term funding and predictable increases to overall baselines. In addition, we support progressive expansion of screening programmes for a wide range of treatable diseases.