GPNZ roadshow acknowledging extraordinary efforts of primary care services around the country

As part of a national road show, Dr Jeff Lowe GPNZ Chair and Liz Stockley Chief Executive, visited Nelson Bays Primary Health PHO and member general practice organisations in the region on Monday.

“General Practices across Aotearoa New Zealand have done an incredible job over the last few months, transforming the way they needed to deliver frontline health services overnight and standing up many of the hundreds of COVID-19 testing and swabbing centres around the country including mobile services. We are visiting to acknowledge the extraordinary efforts Nelson Bays Primary Health PHO and the General Practice network have delivered and continue to deliver on to keep our communities COVID free to this point,” says Liz Stockley GPNZ Chief Executive.

“During the last four months, Nelson Bays Primary Health has supported local general practices to work in partnership with other local providers to run testing centres and deliver services under extraordinary conditions. They provided car park flu clinics which proved a great success, they supported the mobile COVID testing units and they implemented virtual health services across primary care within a week to ensure continuous availability for the people of Nelson and Tasman districts” says Sara Shaughnessy Chief Executive, Nelson Bays Primary Health.

“General Practice teams in the Nelson region are now seeing more people face to face, but we want to hold on to the gains we’ve made in telehealth so that more people can access healthcare by phone or video if that is appropriate for them. It can be especially useful for people living rurally, who may be able to avoid a long car journey when unwell, and those who prefer the convenience of virtual services” she says.