Hon Tony Ryall
Minister of Health

16 October 2013

Another step to improve child health

Health Minister Tony Ryall says the government is taking another step to improve the health of New Zealand children.

Mr Ryall today announced new Well Child / Tamariki Ora quality indicators have been developed to ensure children and their families receive the same high quality service and follow up support no matter where they live.

“The quality indicators bring together a whole raft of data that is already collected and will provide a better overview of how well health services are working for children and their families,” says Mr Ryall.

“Plunket, Tamariki Ora, practice nurses, and midwives routinely talk with parents about a range of health indicators and identify any areas where extra help is required and link them up with assistance.

“One of the quality indicators, for example, is whether a child is growing up in a smoke free home. Parents or caregivers who smoke are offered support to quit and provided with advice on how to make their home smoke free.

“We will now be pulling all the quality indicator data together and reporting it publically to see how services are doing across the country and where we could further improve health services.

“Targets have also been established for each indicator, such as 90 per cent of children live in smokefree homes by December 2014.

“What we have learnt from our successful approach to increasing immunisation coverage is that collating data nationally, setting targets and providing the results to providers lifts performance,” says Mr Ryall.

Well Child / Tamariki Ora is a free service offered to all New Zealand children from birth to five years. It includes a series of health checks to support parents to protect and improve their child’s health.

Last financial year, over 560,000 visits were made to babies and toddlers, and another 52,000 pre-schoolers took part in the B4 School Check programme, which is the final Well Child check.

The Ministry of Health developed the programme with input from lead maternity carers, midwives, Well Child providers including Plunket, general practitioners, public health staff and consumers.

ENDS

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