12. Question No. 12—HealthHon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour) to the Minister of HealthQuestion No. 12—Health12. Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour) to the Minister of Health: Does he agree with Health New Zealand Commissioner Lester Levy that we don't need more money"; if so on what date did he first become aware that Health New Zealand was on track for a significant overspend?SPEAKER: The Hon Shane Jones—oh Shane Reti!Hon Members: Ha ha!SPEAKER: Well they look alike. Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you Mr Speaker. Yes and I also agree with his comment that a $1.4 billion deficit was entirely unacceptable because never before has there been so much money invested into healthcare. To the second arm of the question up to March 2024 I was advised that Health New Zealand was tracking towards a forecast surplus of $583 million. Later in March I was made aware of significant overspends that would impact that forecast. By that point I had already taken steps including adding greater financial expertise to the board in order to uncover the underlying financial and structural issues.Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Has the Government funded Health New Zealand sufficiently enough to ensure all hospital wards have safe nursing staff levels?Hon Dr SHANE RETI: What we have done in the past budget is increase our uplift our cost pressure uplift by the greatest amount ever over three budgets $16.67 billion to take into account and to make sure that we are appropriately staffed across our hospital sector.Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Has the Government funded the health system sufficiently to cover rising costs in general practice or will patients have to pay more to go to the doctors?Hon Dr SHANE RETI: The community allocation in the last budget was around $531 million increasing in each of the following three budgets. And a portion of that will go towards general practice with our expectation that they'll be able to continue to deliver excellent patient services.Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Has the Government funded Health New Zealand sufficiently to fill critical specialist vacancies?Hon Dr SHANE RETI: I am encouraged by the increasing health workforce that we have had every single month despite that member claiming that there's been a hiring freeze. I'm encouraged by the increasing number of registered nurses ECMOs resident medical officers every single month including those that will serve in critical care areas.Hon Nicola Willis: When agreeing to the amount of cost pressure funding that would be allocated to Health New Zealand did the Minister become aware of any other plans for cost pressure funding that had been set by for example other political parties and if so were those more or less than the amount the Government agreed to?Hon Dr SHANE RETI: I was made aware that the Labour Party last year were indicating— SPEAKER: No no. You can't talk about that.Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order—point of order.SPEAKER: Yeah that's right. There's two things here. One is it's not unreasonable to ask the question; that was not out of order. The answer certainly was. If the Minister wants to answer in a different way he may but only within the bounds of his portfolio.Hon Dr SHANE RETI: Thank you Mr Speaker. Yes I was made aware that others had expressed an interest in funding less than we did in the last budget.Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: If his view that the health system is funded adequately is correct when will hiring restrictions in public hospitals end and when will general practice get the funding it needs to stop the public paying more for having to go to the doctor?Hon Dr SHANE RETI: As part of the reset we will be returning to a degree of regionalisation that will encourage regions to be able to recruit to their needs and have the ability the commissioning and the budget to recruit to their needs. This will then mean that we'll be able to flex our health workforce much closer to the health needs closer to the front line and that will deliver better patient outcomes.SPEAKER: Look that brings us to the end of oral questions. Before I call on some honourable member to take note of miscellaneous business we'll take a minute for the House to see that anybody who needs to leave leaves quietly."