Time to accelerate health workforce development

The upcoming financial year will see the government's work on health workforce development accelerate, Health Minister Pete Hodgson announced today.

Speaking at a General Practice conference in Rotorua, Pete Hodgson released two reports on the medical workforce and announced plans to 'quicken the pace' of change in graduate medical training.

"We have had valuable contributions from sector groups and from formal advisory bodies like the Health Workforce Advisory Committee (HWAC) and the Doctors in Training Workforce Roundtable," Pete Hodgson said.

"The season of study and advice is closing and it's now time to put changes in place. To get us started, the government will change the terms of reference for HWAC to re-establish it as an action committee on health workforce."

The two reports released today are:

HWAC's Medical Reference Group's Fit for Purpose and Practice, and
Training the Medical Workforce 2006 and Beyond from the Doctors in Training Workforce Roundtable.

In his speech the Minister outlined a number of points of broad agreement in the two reports. These included:

• Increasing the number of New Zealand trained doctors
• Improving the work-readiness of graduate doctors
• Strengthening the relationship between the Ministry of Health and the Tertiary Education Commission
• Improved graduate training in primary care

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