Budget 2024: Why does primary care miss out on major funding?

+Summer Hiatus
In print
Upfront

Budget 2024: Why does primary care miss out on major funding?

Tim Tenbensel 2022

Tim Tenbensel

Plant_coins_Jar_CR_Micheile-henderson_on_unsplash
How will primary care ever grow without a significant funding “circuit breaker” such as Dame Annette King’s tripswitching Primary Health Care Strategy? [Image: Micheile Henderson on Unsplash]

We are on our summer break and the editorial office is closed until 13 January. In the meantime, please enjoy our Summer Hiatus series, in which our journalists curate an eclectic mix from our news and clinical archives throughout the year, The Conversation and other publications we share content with. Please note the comment function has been turned off while we are away. Happy reading!

This article was first published online on 19 June.

From Barbara: Budget is always a big deal here in the newsroom. We are eternally optimistic, but likewise eternally disappointed. It’s been a few years since we could write a cracker yarn about a significant increase in primary care funding. This year was no different. Our regular policy puzzler (and Auckland university professor of health systems) Tim Tenbensel explains the problem at hand when it comes to attracting Budget money to primary care

Factor in population growth and increased labour costs, and that figure really amounts to treading water. Clearly, primary healthcare advocates are ve