Speech Notes to Open Midland PET-CT Centre

Hon Tony Ryall

Minister of Health

26 May 2011

Speech

Speech Notes to Open Midland PET-CT Centre

Good evening and thank you for inviting me to the opening of the Midland PET-CT Centre. (Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Computed Tomography (CT) Centre.

This is great news for patients from New Plymouth, to Hamilton to Gisborne who will be better off by being able to access these cancer diagnosis and management services closer to home.

Combined PET-CT scans are a valuable tool in diagnosing and monitoring the progression of cancer.

PET scans create coloured pictures of chemical changes in body tissues, especially more active cancer tumours, while CT scans show detailed pictures of the body where the changes are taking place.

The scans present a good picture of what is happening in the body and allow clinicians to plan and adjust a patient’s treatment accordingly – at earlier stages of the disease.

Ultimately, faster access to more reliable diagnostics means a better chance at successful treatment and return to health for people using this service.

Until now, patients in the Midland Cancer Network region had to travel to Wellington for these scans.

In addition to requiring patients and DHBs to meet the associated travel costs, this can place more pressure on patients and their families at an already stressful time.

As I've said, local patients will now be better off getting these services closer to home, but patients in other centres will also benefit from the capacity that has been freed up in Wellington.

I congratulate Hamilton Radiology for its leadership in establishing this service.

In particular, I acknowledge Dr John Dumble and his colleagues at for their foresight with the project

Hamilton Radiology provides a valuable range of diagnostic services to the community.

This PET-CT Centre will help you diagnose and contribute to better care for even more patients.

Most New Zealanders will know someone, whether it is a family member, a friend or a workmate, who has been affected by cancer.

It remains a leading cause of death in New Zealand, even though we have an ever increasing range of ways to detect and treat it.

The Government has made improving access to cancer treatment a key focus for the public health service.

New Zealanders rate quality cancer care as one of their top priorities.

When we came to office, it was not unusual for patients to be waiting 15 weeks to begin radiation treatment.

Scores of lives were disrupted as patients were urgently flown to Australia for treatment.

We set an initial target for all DHBs to provide radiation treatment to people ready for treatment within six weeks of seeing a radiation oncology specialist.

At the beginning of the year the target changed to four weeks.

This is the world gold standard

I am pleased to say that right now 100% of patients are receiving their treatment within four weeks in the last quarter.

Even in the aftermath of the Christchurch quake, 100% of South Island patients got their treatment within 6 weeks, and all but a handful got treatment within 4 weeks post the quake.

That's an outstanding achievement particularly by the Canterbury Cancer Centre and St George's private service.

Another strong focus for us is to make sure fewer people need to seek treatment in the first place by preventing disease. Lung cancer is the leading cause of death from cancer and people can take steps on their own to reduce the risk of it lung cancer.

We have focused strongly on tobacco control as the most effective way to prevent lung disease.

It is the best value investment to reduce non-communicable disease.

Hospitalised smokers across the country are now being offered advice and help to quit, in addition to the services already available in the community.

Although a few DHBs have already reached the target of talking to 90 percent of hospitalised smokers about quitting and offering cessation therapy, there is still plenty of room for improvement.

Quitline calls are jumped 50% since we imposed a tax on tobacco products by an unprecedented 30% over 22 months.

And smoking cessation medicine demand is up 82% in the past year.

Smoking rates are falling.

This is a major public health achievement and will, over time, have significant impact on the health of New Zealanders

We are also putting more money into the pharmaceutical budget – another $20 million in this budget bringing the total extra money for new medicines to $180 million over three years.

This is a big investment in disease prevention and treatment.

Over the term of this Government, an estimated average 180,000 extra people each year have benefited from the increased medicines funding.

This government is committed to protecting and growing the public health service.

Despite tight economic times, we have delivered an extra $1.5 billion to Health over the past three years.

And in this year's Budget, Health was the biggest recipient of new money in this year's Budget.

We announced Health will be getting an extra $2.2 billion over four years.

Of course, the other key aspect of effective cancer treatment is early, accurate diagnosis and regular monitoring to ensure a particular treatment is working.

Which brings me to the services this new centre will provide.

A significant investment has gone into establishing this centre to deliver for Midland patients.

I’m sure this initiative will lead to greater collaboration between Hamilton Radiology and the Midland DHBs.

As part of our focus on improving access to cancer services, the Government has provided extra funding, so that DHBs can offer more PET scans.

We provided $800,000 in the last financial year and, as of 1 July 2010, this has gone up to $1 million a year.

This funding supports at least 550 more patients a year to get scans.

I know that some DHBs, like the Midland DHBs, have also funded additional scans from their own budgets.

All of the PET scanners currently operating in New Zealand are in private ownership.

DHBs contract with the providers for scans.

This is just one example of how the public and private health sectors can work together to help patients.

The public health service has limited funding available for such machines presently and that's why the Government believes in the smart use of the private sector to support our public health system.

Again, I appreciate you inviting me to be a part of opening this centre and thank you for all your hard work to improve the health of New Zealanders.

ENDS