Officials block out details of rural training hubs advice

“You may wish to note you are still considering these recommendations and want to ensure the direction of this work aligns with decisions being taken as part of the review”

Blacked-out pages on briefing papers to health minister Andrew Little leave many questions unanswered about progress being made on rural training hubs.

The briefing papers were released to New Zealand Doctor Rata Aotearoa under the Official Information Act. They state recommendations on the rural training hubs proposal for health professionals are currently under consideration by health minister Andrew Little.

However, the final 16 pages of one 24-page document have been completely blacked out.

This is to both protect privacy of “natural persons” and maintain the effective conduct of public affairs through “free and frank” expressions of opinion, says Mr Little in his response to the OIA request.

The briefing, for Mr Little’s opening speech at the National Rural Health Conference on 30 April, told him he was likely to receive questions relating to the rural hub.

The speech briefing suggest Mr Little should note he is still considering recommendations received in January this year from the Ministry of Health’s steering group.

“You may wish to note you are still considering these recommendations and want to ensure the direction of this work aligns with decisions being taken as part of the review.”

Since the conference there have been no further updates on the matter.

The rural training hubs proposal has been ridden with delays since it was first announced at the National Rural Health Conference in 2019.

While work on the hubs was paused during the initial COVID-19 response, the ministry says it restarted work on it in June 2020.

Also released was a 13-page event briefing for a meeting between Mr Little and the Rural Health Alliance Aotearoa New Zealand which was also released to New Zealand Doctor. In this paper, two pages were blacked out.

The meeting was held as part of RuralFest on 15 April.

After comments in the Health and Disability System Review mentioned the rural health workforce often feels “invisible” to decision makers, the briefing paper suggested Mr Little reinforce the rural sector is a “ministerial priority”.

This included discussing a range of initiatives being led by the ministry’s Health Workforce team, such as scoping the rural interprofessional learning initiative (rural hub).

A series of memos and reports released to New Zealand Doctor under the Official Information Act in December 2020 identified the urgent need for action in rural areas to address chronic health workforce shortages.

This included the report published by the Sapere Research Group, which was tasked with scoping the feasibility of rural training hubs in August 2019.

“The biggest thing is, it is now critical; we need 58 GPs in rural practices, and the ones that are there are ageing. This really needs to be done in a hurry,” wrote one unidentified stakeholder in the report.

A lack of recognition and progress on rural workforce solutions is demoralising, New Zealand Rural General Practice Network chief executive Grant Davidson told New Zealand Doctor post Budget 2021.

“It feels like we are constantly pushing against the tide.”