Ministry of Health Annual Report and Statement of Strategic Intentions

The Ministry of Health has published both its Annual Report 2017 and Statement of Strategic Intentions 2017-21.

The Annual Report provides an overview of the Ministry’s activities in the 2016-17 financial year to achieve the goals set out in the strategic documents.

Under the previous Statement of Intent 2015-2019, Strategic Priority 1 was to "Improve health outcomes for population groups, with a focus on Māori, Pacific peoples, older people and children." This priority included the first Better Public Services target to reduce reported assaults on children. The report noted a slight decrease on this measure from 3,181 substantiated findings of physical abuse by Child, Youth and Family in 2013 to 2,953 in 2016.

The Annual Report highlighted the following work related to this target:

• A partnership between ACC and the Ministry to fund and manage the Power to Protect programme
• Development of a new online e-learning module to educate health professionals on the dynamics of family violence
• Starting a review of the primary health care Violence Intervention Programme (VIP) guidelines in consultation with Medical Sexual Assault Clinicians Aotearoa (MEDSAC, formerly Doctors for Sexual Abuse Care)
• Work begun to update all District Health Board (DHB) VIP policies and procedures to reflect changes to the Family Violence Assessment and Intervention Guideline: Child abuse and intimate partner violence (which was updated in 2016).

The reported also provided a brief overview of the following:

• Ministry's work with the Ministerial Group on Family Violence and Sexual Violence Work Programme
• Ministry's work with the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki
• Ministry's activities focused on the Government's social investment approach
• DHBs' and selected NGOs' work with the Integrated Safety Response pilot (ISR).

Strategic intentions for 2017-21

The Ministry of Health also published its Statement of Strategic Intentions 2017-2021. The intentions include a focus on the updated Better Public Service targets, including reducing the number of children experiencing physical or sexual abuse. There is no reference to other work on family or sexual violence. The Statement of Strategic Intentions was published in October 2017.

Related information and media

Election health policies from the Labour Party, NZ First and the Green Party are available online.

New minister may ask DHB heads for resignation letters, Radio NZ, 2.11.2017