Experts call for survey of unmet need

A group of Canterbury surgeons say New Zealand is behind other developed countries in measuring unmet secondary elective healthcare needs and is calling for a national survey.

In an editorial published in the New Zealand Medical Journal today, co-author and Canterbury Charity Hospital founder Phil Bagshaw and his colleagues say unmet secondary elective healthcare need – non-urgent hospital treatment – has never been appropriately measured by the New Zealand Government or the Ministry of Health.

Bagshaw said there were both humanitarian and economic reasons for doing the survey.

‘‘It’s not good enough, it’s like a great big black hole in our knowledge which could easily be filled,’’ Bagshaw said.

The unmet need for primary (GP) healthcare is measured each year as part of the New Zealand Health Survey, but unmet secondary elective healthcare need (USEHN) is not.

Bagshaw said routine surveys of USEHN were vital measures of how well a country’s healthcare system was functioning and were necessary for international benchmarking.

The report said the Government and the ministry had made ‘‘deliberate efforts to frustrate the measurement of USEHN by obfuscation and a petty attempt at avoidance of media attention to this issue’’.

‘‘It is reasonable to wonder whether they really wish to know its true extent.

‘‘The MOH doesn’t want to measure something that is going to make them look bad, but really it’s time we caught up with the rest of the world here,’’ Bagshaw said.

Studies from Europe involving more than 23 countries showed putting money into elective healthcare and education saved money, Bagshaw said.

‘‘Younger people get back into work, they’re more productive and happier, elderly people remain independent longer and don’t go into care as early.’’

Bagshaw said most of the European Union, North America and Scandinavian countries did surveys to measure how much unmet need there was and used it for the purposes of planning.

‘‘If you want to know how well your health system is doing, you don’t measure what it’s actually doing, you measure what it isn’t doing and what it should be doing,

‘‘The MOH doesn’t want to measure something that is going to make them look bad.’’

Phil Bagshaw

Canterbury Charity Hospital founder

and so far our governments in New Zealand have tried hard to avoid it.’’

He said there needed to be a full survey of total unmet need followed by targeted surveys in subsequent years of targeted areas of concern.

The report said there had always been unacceptable ethnic and other socio-economic inequities in healthcare access and outcomes, and these required urgent attention. ‘‘USEHN, specifically, is a cause of unnecessary suffering, disability and death, and is also a modifiable cause of health inequalities,’’ it said.

The Ministry of Health and Te Whatu Ora have been approached for comment. The report is coauthored by John D Potter, Andrew Hornblow, Ben Hudson, Les Toop, M Gary Nicholls, Chris Frampton, Sue Bagshaw, Robin Gauld and Frank Frizelle.