‘Unsustainable’
GPS work evenings, weekends to meet workload demands
ATauranga general practitioner who works “at least” 2-3 hours per week in her evenings and weekends to do administrative work says workload demands on GPS are “unsustainable”.
Dr Claire Isham says non-clinical work such as writing emails and referral letters is a vital part of the job. However, it is often pushed into out of hours due to the demand for patient consultations.
Isham says time for non-clinical work needs to be protected and resourced by increasing government funding for patient care.
Health NZ Te Whatu Ora has acknowledged the capitation funding system for general practice has limitations and it has taken some steps to improve the way it funds general practice.
It comes as a GP clinic serving 6000 patients in Pa¯pa¯moa is closing in April due to a shortage of GPS and underfunding. A new GP clinic will open in Pa¯pa¯moa in June at the site.
GP calls for ‘protected’ administrative time
Isham works two days per week at the Bethlehem GP clinic Nga¯ti Kahu Hauora and three days at the Western Bay of Plenty Primary Health Organisation as clinical director.
She works at least 2-3 hours in her evenings and weekends to do nonclinical work associated with the GP clinic, she says.
Isham, who has been a GP for more than 20 years, said the majority of work at the clinic was “patient-facing”.
“There’s no protected time to then deal with other clinical-related workload that isn’t patient-facing so emails, patient results, clinic letters . . . ACC reports, insurance reports, all the other correspondence that comes alongside seeing people face-to-face.”
Isham said non-clinical work was a “vital” part of the job and some clinics would try to protect time for staff to do non-clinical work.
However, if it was done during “normal consulting time”, GPS had less availability to see patients.
“That’s why that work tends to then get pushed into out-of-hours.
“At the end of the day, the demands . . . of the patients needing to be seen that day obviously take priority and the other stuff has to fit around that.”
Isham said the volume of nonclinical work had gone up significantly, which made it “unsustainable”.
Isham said a GP shortage was putting additional pressure on available appointments.
“What would be ideal is if that time is recognised and resourced either through increasing the capitation available for patient care to allow people to have protected non-clinical time.”
Capitation-based payments from the Government are based on the number of patients enrolled with individual general practices who belong to a primary health organisation population, the Te Whatu Ora website says.
Nga¯ti Kahu Hauora general manager Reweti Te Mete said non-clinical
They might come in the form of a charming foreigner. It could be what appears to be a genuine text message from a public agency. It might be someone who’s hacked into a Facebook or Trade Me account and is wreaking havoc selling nonexistent items.
It could be an image of an “injured” Mike Hosking on Facebook.
While an appearance of that nature might seem obviously fake to many of us, others are taken in.
There might even be a knock at the door. A real-life person offering an incredible investment scheme.
You have money and the scammers want it.
And they’re going to extensive, elaborate and ever-expanding attempts to access and prise open your bank account.
“Scams are like digital ram raids — thieves are stealing money from customers’ accounts. It’s as simple as that,” says Banking Association chief executive Roger Beaumont.
According to a survey by financial and policing institutions, New Zealanders lost $198 million to scammers in 2023 but that figure is believed to be wildly conservative.
Part of the reason, many of us are too embarrassed to even report we’ve been hoodwinked.
Another survey, by the Global Anti-scam Alliance (Gasa) and Netsafe, puts the total figure lost by Kiwis at more than $2 billion.
These two organisations describe scams as “one of the most pressing challenges of our time”.
“Beyond the financial repercussions, scams erode trust, inflict emotional trauma and undermine the very fabric of our digital society,” Gasa managing director Jorij Abraham says.
Their survey of 1000 New Zealanders reveals scams are on the rise. “Over half witnessed a rise in scams over the past year, emphasising the growing threat.
“Platforms like Gmail (43 per cent) and Facebook (37 per cent) are primary hunting grounds. Identity theft emerged as the paramount concern, haunting 20 per cent of our respondents. Tales of online shopping mishaps, unauthorised credit card transactions and counterfeit charity fronts abound.”
Seventeen per cent of the survey’s 1000 respondents had been scammed, losing an average of $3165.
Abraham said it was “alarming” that scams accounted for 0.5 per cent of New Zealand’s GDP.
“Recovery tales are few and far between, with a mere 15 per cent managing to reclaim all their lost funds.”
Both Abraham and Beaumont tell of deep emotional strain.
“Scams are devastating for anybody because they can be anything. The impact is significant and awful,” says Beaumont.
A respondent to the Gasa survey reported: “The ‘cancer society’ scam was a jarring experience, realising I had been duped by a fake charity”.
Authorities and companies are now acting with more urgency to target the scammers.
There’s now no shortage of agencies, banks and other parties investing considerable sums of money to warn the public of the fraudsters’ many methods, and how to avoid being scammed.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (Mbie) and the Banking Ombudsman launched a social media campaign in November featuring psychologist Nigel Latta.
The Financial Markets Authority launched a similar campaign using Tom Sainsbury.
ASB has launched a new marketing campaign featuring “Ben and Amy”.
And the Banking Association is supporting a new, independent NZME editorial series, which will speak to victims, reveal the lengths the scammers will go to trick consumers and quiz the experts on how they’re trying to fight back. We’re investigating the scope of the issue, speaking to those trying to combat scammers on the frontline, and offering tips and advice on how to avoid being scammed.
Mbie also launched a Fraud Awareness Week in November.
It chairs the interagency fraud working group, which also includes Cert NZ, Netsafe, the Serious Fraud Office, the Retirement Commission, the Financial Markets Authority,
Internal Affairs, police, the Banking Ombudsman, the telecommunications forum and banking industry representatives.
MBIE spokesman Ian Caplin said in November scammers targeted everyone across New Zealand. Especially vulnerable were those who had savings and investments, and looking to earn more from their money.
He says if people think they have been scammed, they need to report it to their bank immediately.
“If you don’t understand it, walk away. Before you make any investment, understand how the investment works.”
But as the Gasa and Netsafe survey revealed, not many of us are reporting scams to our banks or law enforcement. Their survey revealed “a significant” 59 per cent did not report a scam, “echoing a sentiment of resignation rather than resistance”.
Only 35 per cent of respondents turned to law enforcement or other governmental agencies.
Banks themselves have been under scrutiny and criticism with calls from Consumer NZ and financial experts for better customer protection. The Government has also now stepped in.
One significant move to kneecap fraudsters would be a confirmation of payee system, used in the UK.
As NZME reported in February, it works like this: “If you believe you’re about to make a payment to Jane, but the bank account you are sending money to is registered to Mr A Naughtyman — as Consumer NZ put it — the COP process will flag the discrepancy before you make the payment”.
The system also sounds a warning if you think you’re sending money to a company’s account but is actually owned by an individual.
The Government has now stepped in, with Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly giving the banking sector until September to update him on a voluntary reimbursement scheme and until the end of the year to introduce the confirmation of payee system.
Consumer NZ boss Jon Duffy has applauded banks for now working on a confirmation-of-payee solution but said it should have happened years ago.
Beaumont says there is a lot of work going on “at pace” in this area, and the industry would have an update on the timeframe next month.
Australia was also working hard in this area and was targeting later this year or early 2025 for implementation. “I would be very surprised if we were significantly later than that.
“It’s not as simple as flicking a switch and doing that, otherwise we’d have done it by now. There’s actually a lot of technical and security work that needs to be done to have bank systems talking to each other and exchanging that information, but doing that in a way that we can
respect privacy laws and customer confidentiality at the same time.”
People also needed to realise that while it was another weapon in the armoury, it was not a silver bullet.
Beaumont says many banks had stopped sending text messages with web links and “others will follow pretty soon”.
Beaumont says scams will always be with us. Thieves will always try to break down the virtual walls of your bank account.
While banks acknowledge their role to play, they also say it takes a village to raze a fraudster.
They want to see telcos, social media and search engine companies playing their part.
“When you think about how a scam plays out, the money leaving your bank account is the very last step in that process,” says Beaumont.
“It might be a fake ad in social media that makes you click on a link that’s promoting something dubious. It might be a phone call from a scammer that is coming from an illegitimate source.
“It might be a text that you’ve been sent via your telco with an embedded link that is a complete and utter scam.”
He cites search engines that throw up fake bank websites.
“You might go into a search engine to quickly bring up your bank so that you can log in with your details. Now, that might sound a really logical thing to do but what happens is that the scammers might impersonate a bank website.
“So it comes up on your search and it looks entirely like your bank — it looks all familiar, the same logo. You log in your banking details, not realising that you’re logging into a scammer’s account rather than your bank’s account.”
Beaumont says customers should strive to type in their bank’s URL address (eg, asb.co.nz or bnz.co.nz) directly.
Beaumont points out that good work is under way with the likes of telcos, who are now preventing international fraudsters from being able to mimic banks’ official phone numbers when they call victims.
“It’s someone sitting in Romania who has created a system where they can mask where they’re calling from and actually create this fake impression that they’re calling from a local number here in New Zealand, which happens to be your bank.”
Telcos and banks have worked together, whereby banks have supplied numbers that would be called from offshore.
“[The telcos] block that number if it is replicated from an overseassourced call; it just doesn’t connect.
Even the tragic death of politician Fa'ana¯na¯ Efeso Collins was the target of fraudsters after they set up fake links to fake funeral pages.
Beaumont says scammers are “sophisticated and tricky” and will never disappear.
“There’s always going to be work to be done because, let’s be really clear, there is never going to be a complete end to scams,” says Beaumont. “These are things that are always going to be with us.”
He says banks have to be vigilant — as do customers.
“Everybody has a part to play to be careful and vigilant to reduce the chances of scams occurring.
“Scammers are criminals. They are robbers who are trying to thieve money from people’s accounts and if you put up a barrier, they will try to find a way around that barrier and use all sorts of lies and coercion to try to extract those funds.”
Recent media reports have helped raise awareness of scams and the methods that fraudsters employ.
“I know anecdotally just from family members reading some of that coverage, it’s caused them to say, that could have been me and I need to be more vigilant and more cautious in terms of what I do to avoid being in that same situation.”
Scambusters is an independent editorial series brought to you with the support of the Banking Association.