Equity dollars for general practices now due April

“This has taken us longer than expected as we needed to refine the methodology for allocating the funding”

Money announced in last May’s Budget 2022 for equity adjustments to primary care funding is now expected to be paid out starting in April.

But details remain unclear on how the first $12.76 million tranche of the $86 million over four years will be allocated, and who will receive it.

Te Whatu Ora national director commissioning Abbe Anderson, in an emailed response to New Zealand Doctor Rata Aotearoa, says the first payments from the fund are “expected to progress in the April-June quarter”.

“This has taken us longer than expected as we needed to refine the methodology for allocating the funding to ensure we can achieve the greatest equity impacts and meaningful improvements for Māori and Pacific people as well as other areas of high need,” Ms Anderson says in the statement.

A request for details on how the funding will be allocated went unanswered in the response.

In an emailed response to New Zealand Doctor in November, Rachel Haggerty, Te Whatu Ora’s director of transformation and enablers in commissioning, said the Budget 2022 money was intended “to more equitably allocate funding to general practices on the basis of their enrolled high needs population”.

“Consideration is being given to the most effective way to distribute the resources to support care for our Māori, Pacific and rural communities to reduce unfair variation in access to healthcare and health outcomes,” she said in the email. She also said at the time that distribution of the funding would begin in 2023.