Responding to the Health Minister’s introduction of national health indicators, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says:

“We’ve been calling for this and frankly it’s incredible that the Government has taken so long. The softening of language from ‘targets’ to ‘indicators’ is not ideal, but Andrew Little deserves credit for righting David Clark’s wrongs and refocusing on accountability in the health sector.”

“What gets measured gets done. After National introduced health targets, DHB performance on key metrics like emergency department wait times ticked up sharply. Then that performance dropped after Labour scrapped the targets in 2017. That’s hardly a coincidence.”

“The list of indicators should be reviewed and expanded regularly. It is strange, for example, that emergency department wait times aren't included in the new set of indicators, considering recent poor performance on that front."

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