Verrall Ayesha; Peke-Mason SorayaHon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister of Health): Thank you Madam Chair. I will refer to the earlier question about health infrastructure in general and also in Auckland and I just think it's really exciting. I visited with Shanan Halbert the local MP Tōtara Haumaru the new build for elective surgery on the North Shore: 150 beds and eight theatres and endoscopy suites. It's looking really good and the opening is just months away. So that's a very exciting facility there and it's part of that process to make sure that we separate our planned care from acute care so that we can keep planned care going whatever the pressures are that we have on acute care. I'm very proud that this Government has prioritised funding on health capital and hasn't cut it back just when our times have got difficult because these are such long-term projects that you really do require continuous investment. That is the only responsible way to be able to make sure our country gets the hospitals our people need. With respect to Nelson Hospital that is a very exciting development for the people of Nelson. We were able to announce the move to phase one of that project with over $70 million for the detailed design to be funded and for studies on the site. There are issues with resilience with the existing building and so the plan for this one is for it to be built to IL4 standards so it can continue to operate if there was a serious earthquake. The building proposed is for an acute services block that would contain the emergency department—an enlarged emergency department—theatres of course surgical medical and maternity; and then refurbishing and strengthening existing buildings on site to make sure that other services including community health and other ancillary and support services such as rehabilitation are available there. Indeed it would be a very important building for the region and I'm very pleased that our Government is able to take a significant step in the development of that building. SORAYA PEKE-MASON (Labour): Tēnā koe Madam Chair. Minister recently sadly I found out that my youngest sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. Fortunately it was caught early in the piece and she went through the process but she kept it so herself. She's the sort of person who wanted no pity and we found out later when she was on the mend which was great news. But nevertheless of course like with anyone in any whānau it's a very concerning matter when it comes to any kind of cancer. So my question is around explaining please in terms of the Government's major upgrade of the breast-screening register how this initiative improves the uptake of screening appointments Minister. In addition please with regard to Budget 2023's $118 million in funding to reduce the waiting lists how does it help New Zealanders to access the cancer treatment more quickly? Kia ora. Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister of Health): I thank that member for her question. The upgrade of the breast-screening register is an incredibly important initiative. It is dated and that means that there are risks in terms of the ability to keep making sure the service is properly provided and for the security of the system. That work is under way and I believe it is next year that that project will be completed. The important thing about that project is that many of the things that you'd think your health information system should be able to do you can't currently do with the breast-screening system. So for example I know that members of this House ask quite logical and reasonable questions about breast-screening coverage and about who is and who isn't screened but that cannot be extracted from the register as it currently is which is frustrating and it stops us from being able to improve the system. The second thing that is a problem is that many of the more sophisticated outreach tools that we used over COVID—for example text messages or emails that incredibly cheaply helped get more people to be aware that their visit was due—will be able to be done with the new system which we can't currently do. So that is a huge advance as well. So those opportunities to make sure people who should be screened are being screened to improve the equity of the breast-screening service are incredibly important. The $118 million for action on wait-lists in Te Whatu Ora's budget—one of the key priorities for that is implementing the response to the task force report. Now all cancer surgery is highly prioritised in all of our hospitals so that goes without saying. But challenges over COVID meant that some people who had surgeries that could have been deferred were having to wait far too long and that money is going towards making sure that theatres are efficient and that we're doing all of the work to be on top of how many operations we need to do to catch up and then doing the catch-up and in some cases outsourcing.