Message from Our CEO: Strengthening Primary Care Together

Tēnā koutou katoa,

Firstly, I acknowledge the huge efforts of our General Practice network along with our network partner Coast To Coast Health Care Limited. I also acknowledge their resilience; their persistence and perseverance surrounding contextual issues that shape their delivery of primary care.

We must remember that while general practices are mostly privately owned businesses, government determined funding levels and fees structures significantly constrain income despite the increases in service demands and running costs. The contextual issues (e.g. workforce pressures, funding, reforms, socio-economic and commercial determinants, regional variation) are again largely determined and influenced by government agency via national and regional policy and infrastructure. These issues are not new and are likely to be present longer term.

Reflecting on these issues and on the past 12 months (and more), it is encouraging to see how far we have come as an organisation:

• Although medium-sized as an organisation, we have a large geographical footprint (Northland, West and North Auckland) that will likely expand across Central and South Auckland.

• PHO-produced services and products have been minimised to only those that enhance the work of the network.

• Change management initiatives have streamlined PHO overheads and increased capability.

• We have strengthened our collaborations with community providers to increase referral, educational, and population-based offerings.

• We have further enhanced our Insights Portal with increased useability aligned to financial and clinical information. These enhancements nicely complement the real‑time view of key metrics and practice activity.

We have strategically used the opportunity of not owning any general practices to our advantage and predominantly work to benefit our practice network. What this means, is that we are closer to our objective of providing maximum funding in conjunction with aligned practical support to our practices. Alongside managing financial performance to ensure fiscal solvency, we have worked to increase efficiencies to an ultimate maximum; ensuring our practice network receive maximum funding.

As highlighted above, we have strengthened community collaborations and these partnerships are delivering practical results; aligning education and clinical pathways for our health workforce, advancing whānau‑centred services with population-based partners, integrating rehabilitation referrals with ACC, aligning cultural navigation supports in multiple communities, closing gaps of unmet need in mental health and addictions, and broadening our population health-based research and analytics. Looking ahead, we will continue to build these relationships especially with those that allow us to close other gaps of unmet need in the care of older adults and disability communities for example.

Comprehensive Care PHO underwent a routine audit by Health New Zealand/Te Whatu Ora in the key compliance areas and obtained 100% compliancy in both of Ngā Paerewa Health and Disability Services Standards and General Principles and Good Practice. We received 99% for Contracts compliance where a very small number of minor administrative changes needed action. I am immensely proud of the Comprehensive Care staff who have worked hard to achieve these results.

My wholehearted thanks to the Comprehensive Care Board, who have been supportive of my leadership and genuinely committed to achieving our vision. My appreciation also extends to the Senior Leadership Team for their support and unwavering commitment to excellence. Similarly, I acknowledge and thank the Comprehensive Care staff for their hard work and for making this journey so rewarding.

Looking to the year ahead, we remain focused on building momentum from our achievements while adapting to an evolving environment.

Nāku me ngā mihi,

Dr Jacqueline Schmidt‑Busby

Chief Executive Officer

Comprehensive Care