Whakarongorau again boosts ProCare’s profit

ProCare Network Ltd in 2020/21

• After-tax profit: $2.031 million.
• Previous year after-tax profit: $2.051 million.
• Profitable joint venture: Whakarongorau Aotearoa.
• Loss-making joint ventures: Care HQ and Fresh Minds NZ.

Telehealth provider Whakarongorau Aotearoa contributed more than $3 million to the ProCare group’s 2021 profit, while losses at two other joint ventures nibbled away at the bottom line.

Auckland-based ProCare Network Ltd and its subsidiaries have reported a profit of $2.031 million after tax, on total income of $278.99 million.

The after-tax profit for the network is down slightly on the previous year’s $2.051 million, the annual report for 2020/21 shows.

ProCare and Christchurch-based Pegasus each own half of Whakarongorau, which runs Healthline.

The ProCare report says the group’s share of Whakarongorau activity is $3.171 million. But that is offset by losses at two other joint ventures – $252,359 at Care HQ, co-owned with Southern Cross and in its first year of operation; and $197,255 at Fresh Minds New Zealand, which was set up with Wellington-based Tū Ora Compass Health.

It was a second strong year for Whakarongorau.

“It’s been an organisation that has been positioned well to provide a national service, and has been very adaptable at ramping up a workforce and using its existing workforce,” says ProCare Network chair and specialist GP Harley Aish. “They really did transform themselves and adapt to the requirements of a pandemic.

“They have upscaled beyond what any individual organisation anywhere else in New Zealand could have done, I believe. And with that, there’s a small return to the shareholders that we are putting to good purposes.”

The Fresh Minds NZ joint venture, a psychological service created in 2019, has been wound up after it became less viable, Dr Aish says.

The annual report says Fresh Minds NZ was set up to manage the national implementation of the Te Tumu Waiora integrated model of primary mental healthcare, which involves providing health improvement practitioners and health coaches in general practices.

Johnny O’Connell was chief executive of the service until he returned to Ireland last year.

“I think that [Mr O’Connell’s departure] was one of the contributing factors to why a national initiative didn’t take off,” Dr Aish says. But he emphasises the Fresh Minds service continues to operate in Auckland and is in high demand.

According to the ProCare annual report, the network’s two largest sources of income, both from DHBs, were $155.09 million for first-level services and $43.778 million for COVID-19 testing and vaccination. The latter figure is up substantially from $10.431 million the previous year.

Dr Aish says Clinical Assessments Ltd – a ProCare joint venture with East Health PHO – runs contracting for the Primary Options for Acute Care (POAC) scheme.

The venture uses POAC for making COVID-19 swabbing and other payments. That accounts for a substantial rise in Clinical Assessment’s income – and also for ProCare’s, as two-thirds owner – but it doesn’t contribute to ProCare’s profit.